Zebra Finch Breeding

These delightful little birds are very easy to sex in the wild greyform. The cocks are far more colourful and boldly marked than the hens and in most of the colour varieties this continues to beso, though the difference might be less marked than in the greyform. With white Zebras the only way of sexing the birds is to lookfor the vivid red beaks of the cocks and the rather more orangebeaks of the hens.

Zebras will breed readily in a large box cage or in an aviary.Keep only one pair in a cage but in an aviary it is best to have atleast ten pairs: if there are only two or three the birds squabble continuously. In the spring put a foreign finch nest basket in thecage, or if you have an aviary put up plenty of them - far morethan you have pairs of birds - as high as you can and protectthem from inclement weather. A foreign finch nest basket is awicker construction about the size and shape of a coconut with an entrance hole in one side near the top. When you have put upyour nest boxes fill them almost to the top with hay or grass andmoss. Zebra Finches have a hobby; they make a nest in a suitablebasket, lay a clutch of eggs, build another nest on top of them, lay a second clutch, build another nest and so on till they get to the top. Then they will happily incubate the top clutch. By now,though, the hen is so worn out and the season so far advancedthat often the chicks do not do at all well. However, by filling thenest to the top so that there is only room for a single clutch ofeggs you can overcome this problem.

Zebras may well lay large clutches of eggs but they may find it difficult to incubate all of them, or feed great hordes of famishedchicks. If you keep Bengalese Finches in the same aviary trygetting them to incubate the Zebra eggs - it is worth knowing that Bengalese are great foster parents. Both birds take turns to sit fortwelve days, and the chicks leave the nest after 20 days, afterwhich they continue to be fed by the cock for a while. It is a goodidea to provide extra food such as sprouted seed, millet sprays,seeding grasses and wholemeal bread in milk for the chicks. After a pair has reared four broods, remove all the nest boxes and cleanand disinfect them for the following season.