Wow. I remember when I had only a few zebra finch hens and my population wasn’t growing at all, then some good friends gave me a couple hens, I got a few more from the bird club, and I started having nests full of eggs which usually hatched into sweet babies. Right now, the zebras are in overdrive: clutch after clutch has been fledging, and I’m hearing chicks begging for food from parents who chased them out of the nest to lay more eggs.
I love having these beautiful tiny beings around me because they aren’t as afraid of me as the adults are. I have them land on my arms, in my hair, on my visor, and cling to my shirt; when the weather is cold, they land on me to warm up. Occasionally one will fly into the safety room and won’t be able to find its way out, so I gently catch it with my hands, give it kisses, and set it back into the aviary. Sometimes I place it on a hanging manzanita branch and let it orient itself, then I laugh when it stays there for the remainder of my time in the aviary.
The babies are from a colony breeding situation, with black cheeks and fawns and chestnut flanked whites in the mix. I am particularly drawn to the chicks with grayish heads and white bodies, an my hope is to have a line of white zebras develop out of these beginnings. My black cheeks are mixing with the normal grays so they are losing the dark black patches; I will need to eliminate those through sales.
When I notice chicks that have hatched in the various nests around the aviary, I start checking on them every day. I have one pair of finches that lays two or three eggs in a very large nest but only one chick ever hatches; I’m not sure what is going on there. Sometimes I am surprised when I check a nest that was empty not too long ago and find a clutch waiting for mom or dad to come back with the food.
I am hoping this abundance of fertility will leak over to my other birds. I’m having no luck with my society finches, which, so far, haven’t laid any eggs. The Gouldians are doing okay, but probably the same couple who laid a clutch about six months ago has laid another clutch and the chicks are thriving. I seriously need to figure out my male to female ratio and see what I need to do.
Button quail make me want to scream: Soot, a hen in the aviary, sat on a nice pile of eggs pretty tightly for about five days, then she apparently got bored and left. The baby zebra finches, of course, liked to sit with her in there at night, so I hope she is still cuddling with them. The only pair giving me chicks regularly is Lace and Keeper in the wooden coop. I pulled the four they hatched out because I didn’t want to push my luck, but Keeper is the best button quail dad I have ever had: he did not pluck or beat up the kids for the entire four weeks I left them out there.
Of course, the coturnix quail won’t sit and hatch their eggs, so that’s not an expectation, and I just realized that Bunny in the main aviary was jumping on Bindi way too much to be a girl; apparently the quail finally matured enough to show sexual parts. Benny is cohabitating with his older brother, Bruno, and they squabbled a little bit at first but now get along fine.
My cape doves are sitting on two eggs again, and I am concerned that I will never find hens for the (now) three boys I have. The clutch before the ones currently in the nest are still not mature enough to show their colors, so I don’t know for sure if I have three hens or two hens and a male. Hopefully they will peacefully co-exist until I get more hens and find homes for some of the boys.
I don’t think I will ever want to be without zebra finches around somewhere. I have two pair in the house because we love their noises so much, but I do need to sell off some of these kids and hope they go to good homes. It’s my dearest wish for the babies who sit in my hair and let me give them kisses.
Thanks for reading; I’ll be back next Sunday.
In Loco Parrotus 