Moving to correct thread.

 

From: <NOBR>Mum-to-2-Cuties2</NOBR>  (Original Message)

Sent: 4/30/2005 8:36 PM

Annie regarding your reply in my post how long....  Yes we have read up on breading and  we have Zebra Finches ok so I couldn't remember what they were are,  but hey we aren't all perfect at remebering names of birds maybe you are!  I do know that the parents need speical food and that the internet and books we have read say different things and we were jsut wanting to know if anyone on here could give us a eastmite of how many eggs their finches had, had.

So sorry if my reply angered you.

Hope you get the info you need.

Annie

ok sorry 2

 

can you tell us how long to leave the eggs before we take them out , just that she does not seem to be sitting on them much ( is this a bad sign)

they are still protective of the nest, have never had finches before we do not know

1. how long till she finishes laying this lot?

2. how to tell if evrything is ok?

3. if we handle the egg will she give up on the nest?

she has one egg in the nest at the moment.

 

It takes about 18 days for the eggs to hatch once they start sitting on them.  I just went through something like that with a bird of mine, and she got tired of sitting on a lumpy surface after a month.  I let her tell me when she was done sitting on empty eggs and didn't pull them.  If she hadn't come out twice a day to eat, and have the male feed her between times I would have pulled them earlier.  Usually they won't start sitting on their eggs full-time until they have 2 or 3 eggs in there, so you've got time.  It's been a few years, but I think mine laid one every other day until she had a full clutch--probably took a week for them all.  Keep in mind that if you just put the pair together and your female wasn't with a mixed group of males/females before you got her, this first egg will be a "dud".  I think Annie or somebody posted a link on the sidebar to egg development, if not I'll see if I can hunt it down.  Pretty good article that gives info on how long it takes for an egg to form from start to finish.  It takes a few days, so if she just mated, you might only have one or two good ones from this clutch, if any.  If she's a first-time mother, I wouldn't bother with candling the eggs this time.  She might spook and desert the nest. 

 

Since she's started laying already, now's the time to introduce them to some eggfood or other soft food to keep up her energy (and calcium levels) and get them used to having it for the youngsters.  She needs plenty of calcium to form those eggs, so if you don't have a cuttlebone in with them you should get one.  I made an eggfood for my finches that was really simple, and had no problems with losing mothers or babies.  One boiled egg mashed up, about 1/4 cup of crushed pellets (I used leftover pellets from my big birds) shaved cuttlebone (took a kitchen knife to a regular cuttlebone and scraped it lightly so it came off as almost a powder) mixed well until it was a crumbly mixture.  I used about one teaspoon in a small dish and only left it in their cage for a couple of hours.  The rest went into a ziploc baggie in the fridge.  This only keeps for a couple of days, so with only one pair of birds you might be throwing out a bunch.  Then.....I took the eggshells from the hardboiled egg and nuked them in the microwave for 2 min, crumbled them up, and put them on top of the eggfood for added calcium. 

 

This is becoming a novel.  I'm sure your finch books will tell you pretty much the same thing I just did.  If you want to see some awsome pictures of different types of zebra finches, go to zebrafinch.com  I did have some of his birds (well, Nay has some of his birds) and they were outstanding.  Let us know how the nesting is progressing, ok?

I found a good site yesterday when trying to help you. It gives slightly different info than ZonkersMom and I don't know which is correct. I have only bred Gouldians, not Zebras.  This says they lay an egg daily til about 6 have been laid and hatching starts 13 days after incubation begins.

 

I gave my Gouldians microwaved chicken egg shells with the membrane removed after cooking. They liked them either ground up or in large pieces which they bit off in pieces. I used CeDe egg food. It's a dry product that I felt was less likely to spoil in my very high humidity birdroom.

They can use a little shallow bath tub in the flight, too, so they can bathe and keep the nestbox humid enough for good egg development.

You can handle the eggs without a problem, remembering that they are fragile.

I took away each egg as it was laid, marked it, and replaced it with a fake egg. Then when all had been laid, I put the real eggs back at the same time. This way the babies all hatched at about the same time and none were larger than another. Larger babies will sometimes beg more and get fed more so the younger ones don't survive. If you do this, put the eggs in a small bowl of cornmeal to protect them from damage.

Annie

 

Go with Annie's info.  I'm still trying to switch gears from my bourke parakeet breeding .  I was hunting for my two zebra finch books earlier, and found every other reference book I own, but not those.  Go figure.  I concentrated more on breeding for size and specifically the penguin mutation of the zebra finch, but after I discovered there's not a really big market for them around here, separated my males and females into two separate large flights.  Then when it looked like I would be deployed to Iraq I gave them all away.  Be careful, finches multiply not unlike rabbits if you're not careful.

ok heres another dumb question.......

we live in new zealand and can you tell us what is cornmeal?

as we don't get that here .......... unless it has a differnt name?

 

Maybe you call it cornflour? It is ground (milled) corn. We use it to make cornbread and to make a batter for fried fish. It doesn't matter though. You could use regular flour or any ground grain flour. The idea is to support the eggs so they don't roll around in an empty bowl and break. I suppose you could even put them on cotton batting (cotton wool?), just place them so they can't roll around.

Annie

 

 

 

 

 

 

Similar, but cornbread is baked up in a cake pan or cast iron skillet, or as muffins, and corndogs are usually fried, although I did bake some long ago. Messy project.

I remember a while back when another Canadian member who had transplanted from the US said she couldn't find cornbread mix. Here we have many brands of cornbread and corn muffin mixes that all we add is an egg and milk, then bake. Then we have packages of cornmeal in regular yellow, white, which is more finely ground and a yellow stone ground. It is very coarse and lots of people don't like it. I personally don't like the white finely ground one. Not as good flavor.

I like it best with just a little sugar added to the mix, but then, I am southern.

Annie