Ask Lafeber

When to remove fake eggs

Hi there!

We’ve had our pair of society finches for around 2 months now. I’ve been supplementing their food with crushed hardboiled eggs to help them regrow feathers on their wings and tails. Not sure why they were missing so many crucial feathers (molting, damage from being housed with other birds at the store, stress?), but since then the feathers have come in beautifully. The unintended effect of them being happy and healthy is now we have eggs 😉

We definitely want to raise a clutch of baby finches someday, but we’re not ready right now…even though our birds beg to differ. Our hen laid the first egg on March 9th, and ended with a total of 5 (laying one each day). We swapped out the eggs with dummy eggs shortly after, and they’ve been taking turns incubating ever since.

My question: when do we take the eggs and the nest out? I was thinking sometime next week, to mimic that 12-14 day incubation period? We plan to take the nest and eggs out, then reduce their light a bit and cut the egg food out entirely as well.

Hi Emma,

When you don’t want chicks, it’s best to just not give them a nest at all, even if she lays eggs. They only need a nest for when you want them to breed. Most of the time if she does lay eggs without a nest, you can take the eggs away. It is true some birds will just keep laying eggs. For the most part fake eggs are used as a place holder, to wait until all eggs are laid, and then the real eggs are returned to make sure all of the eggs hatch around the same time. This prevents a big age difference between the first and last to hatch. But it’s OK that you have this set up this time. I would remove the nest and eggs a few days after they would actually be due, if the parents haven’t already given up. However, if you observe mating, I would take the nest away immediately. You can go ahead and reduce their light now, as this might encourage them to abandon the nest. And yes, stop offering the egg food once you remove the nest – you are right that trying to get them in better condition probably triggered this. Finches are pretty sensitive about nesting, so generally you can just move the cage around to other spots in the room and this can discourage nesting. Typically if they are in a high traffic area of the house they are less likely to nest and if in a quiet area, they are more likely to nest. I’m glad you have done your research! Sadly a lot of finch owners let their birds breed until they die from exhaustion and poor health. Even the little males can die from being allowed to breed over and over without a rest.

Thank you for asking Lafeber,

Brenda