sexing society finches

[broody rooster]

i appear to have miscalculated with my "experiment" i put a society finch egg in a nest full of zebra eggs and the zebras hatched and now have pinfeathers and are starting to open their eyes and the society egg was dirty had poop on it and i assumed it was dead but i candled it and it looks like it could hatch any minute seeing the veins and large pink blob in the egg so um ... yeah my question is will the zebras take care of this foster baby ? even tho their own babies will be fledged long after it is near ready to open its eyes or will the zebra babies outcompete him? should i give the baby to his real parents who i've not seen much parental instinct other then sitting on eggs ?

 

[GitaBooks]

i appear to have miscalculated with my "experiment" i put a society finch egg in a nest full of zebra eggs and the zebras hatched and now have pinfeathers and are starting to open their eyes and the society egg was dirty had poop on it and i assumed it was dead but i candled it and it looks like it could hatch any minute seeing the veins and large pink blob in the egg so um ... yeah my question is will the zebras take care of this foster baby ? even tho their own babies will be fledged long after it is near ready to open its eyes or will the zebra babies outcompete him? should i give the baby to his real parents who i've not seen much parental instinct other then sitting on eggs ?

That's a difficult dilema. I doubt he will survive with the zebra finches, they will likely smother him or eat all the food. Are his real parents nesting?

 

[broody rooster]

not really do you think if i put two of the 3 baby zebras in the nest with the societies theyll take care of them

 

[GitaBooks]

not really do you think if i put two of the 3 baby zebras in the nest with the societies theyll take care of them

I'm not sure. I don't know if it would be worth risking, but I'm not an expert. Our zebra finches bred whether we wanted them too or not! We never tried adopting them to other birds.

 

[Lozuufy]

I just wrote an article on hand raising a society finch from an egg, it was allot of work but if you have no other options then I hope it helps. My society finches adopted my hand raised one easily so they might take the zebras however mine was fully feathered and could fly around after them begging. Good luck if you do decide to try hand raising it!

https://www.backyardchickens.com/a/hand-raising-a-society-finch-from-an-egg-with-pictures

 

[broody rooster]

thankyou! that is a great article and my societies are now sitting on 3 eggs so im tempted to slip their egg back in there with them

 

[broody rooster]

unfortunately the zebra chicks dented the egg and killed it on a brighter note they will be fledging very soon their pin feathers are breaking

 

[GitaBooks]

unfortunately the zebra chicks dented the egg and killed it on a brighter note they will be fledging very soon their pin feathers are breaking

I'm sorry to hear about the egg, but I'm glad the others are doing well!

 

[broody rooster]

im under the suspicion that something may be genetically wrong with my pair of society finches as the babies die in the egg when they are really close to hatching and i dont know why they are both crested society finches so im not sure if that makes a difference

 

[GitaBooks]

I've read that crested finches, if bred together, have a lethal gene that makes them die in the egg. Its the same with crested ducks but not with crested chickens or geese. Its complicated with genetics.