Are zebra finches easy to mate?

[Poulman]

Hello everybody

I recently bought a pair of zebra finches. In my country the petshop owners sell mostly this kind of finches and they generaly call them "paradise birds".
The good thing is that they are sexualy dimorphic with the male having red or orange cheeks.
When I bought them I put a nest in the cage and some nesting material. from the first day they started to put the material in the nest but no egg yet.
Someone told me that this kind of birds are very eager to mate. Is it possible to have my finches mated before summer?

Here is a photo of the male (no name given yet)



[attachment deleted by admin because the forum couldnt upgrade with so much attachments

[Poulman]

... no answer yet dudes?

Maybe there's no one who has finches.
I've red somewhere that these birds are easily afraid and they won't mate if their surrounding invironment is very noisy.
Since I have too much noise in the street and the weather gets very warm now in Greece, I've decided to take their cage in my room. I also hanged a lamp near their cage so they can have enough light.
I expect them to start laying eggs soon.

[Otterkin]

I called a breeder I know and asked her you q. She said that some times finches will not breed unless there is more then 2 of them. She said you may try another pair if you cage is large anoghe for them.
Good luck!

[mearow]

Zebra finches=the mice of the bird world. Give them a quiet place a good diet with egg food and plenty of protien and ample light. They should mate.

[Poulman]

thank you for your replies. I was always keen of these little finches because of their cute mini size and their tender squeaks! my pair of zebras though, don't seem to have any intention to mate. they just sit side by side and make no sound at all :( . I'm thinking of buying a second pair and put them all together but I'm concerned about the size of their cage and also that I wont be able to know to which couple of birds would any future offspring belong.

[mearow]

Two pairs of any birds generally speaking will fight for territory. Not to mention even female zebras can get aggressive to the other female and can hurt if not kill her. Three pairs will however do fine. The size of the cage is very important to any birds not just the large ones like macaws etc. All birds need to be able to stretch their wings without hitting any toys and with finches flight is so important. These little guys need room to fly and get around without obsticles. I bred my zebras for a long time and I found that a well rounded diet, fresh foods, pellets, meal worms, seeds, egg food and cooked rice is a great catalyst to start them out.

The space issue is another thing that would stop them from mating. My general rule of thumb for a zebra breeding cage is to find one with close spacing that most pet stores call Cockatiel cages. Those tend to be very roomy and to some seem like a waste of space but look at your current cage and now imagine seven finches living in it. That is exactly what will happen once they do raise a clutch you have the potential for that many birds in one cage until they wean.

If they are not breeding or at least the female laying then here is a potential list or just a few I must say of the common reasons. There are TONS more but lets eliminate these first and go from there. The most common is people mistake males and females. Make sure you have a M/F pair. Secondly not enough room to move, not enough nesting materials, not a good enough diet, not enough light, not a stable nest, not in a quiet enough spot and finally not enough calcium in the hens diet. Once you make sure you have taken care of that list then they should breed straight away. If they don't then we can go to other causes.

For example: One lady had a pair that wouldn't mate and she couldn't figure out why...after many, many weeks come to find out she had bought a snake and placed him under the cage. Well DUH! Of course they are not gonna breed in those condtions, they can sense the predator. Anyways not that you have a snake or anything just an example. ;)

So lets work it out together shall we? Good luck and keep up posted on their progress.

[Poulman]

Still no progress :(
I'm afraid that my female zebra finch is just too young.
I think that I may have to wait till the end of summer, then see what to do.
Maybe I'll buy a very large cage and throw inside 3 couples of finches.
My greatest concern about this idea is that I wouldn't be able to tell to which male the offsprings will bellong.

[mearow]

Generally speaking the zebra males will feed their offspring only. The chicks have a particular pattern on the inside of their mouths that tell the parents which chicks are theirs. Kinda neat huh?

[Poulman]

Nice info!

Well my pair seems not eager to become parents :(

I'll just wait a couple of months I think...

[ElamLiaibra]

Maybe its just me, but I think its WRONG to keep any finch and use it as an egg-laying machine. And how much research did you do if you dont know how big or small Zebra Finch eggs are???