Initially I had a pair of finches and they hatched 3 babies, I think 2 male and 1 female (2 have full white feathers and 1 has greyish color feathers). Its been about 5-6 months they hatched, now the babies started to harm their mother but they didn’t do anything to their dad when they left in same cage. I am not sure why this is happens. Can someone explain what to do for this issue?
Hi,
You need to separate the offspring from the parents, and you need to keep the male chicks separate from the females. Chicks should always be removed as soon as they are weaned, and then separated by sex as soon as you can tell what they are. Otherwise, the parents will usually start attacking the weaned chicks to drive them away. This is nature’s way of preventing related birds from breeding. Captive birds do not know the difference, and now they are getting hormonal and fighting for territory. They should not be allowed to breed at 5 months, and they should not be with the parents at this age. If you don’t have extra cages, you need to buy some now, or find homes for the chicks now. Otherwise you will end up with badly injured or dead birds – trust me, the fighting has just started. If there is a nest in the cage, it needs to be removed now. You can’t breed birds with more than the pair in the cage, and at this point, you have no way of knowing if any of the chicks have mated with the parents. Again, I can’t stress enough not to let related birds breed with each other! It can cause deformities, weak chicks or chicks that die in the shell. I would not give the parents a nest again unless you have a place for the chicks to go once they are weaned. None of them need a nest to sleep in – a nest is only for breeding.
Thank you for asking Lafeber,
Brenda
