Four New Little Surprises! :-)

Good news! I just did a nest-check, and Whisper and Ghost have four hatchlings (zebra finches)! :-) This is Whisper's first time as a mom. She's a white female, and Ghost is a pied normal male. Looks like two of them hatched about 3 days ago, and the other two hatched within the last 24 hours. The older ones are quite a bit larger than the younger ones, so I'll have to keep an eye on them to make sure the little ones don't get "lost" in the bottom of the nest. Unfortunately I don't have another pair of birds with similarly-aged chicks this time, so if the little ones do get accidentally skipped over at meal time, I'll be handfeeding. :-) I may have to remove Ghost from the cage. He's spied "the girl next door", and keeps trying to chase Whisper away so he can flirt with his neighbor. Boys! ;-) Here is a photo of their babies, taken today, 8/12/11. I didn't candle the remaining egg, but just from looking at it, it appears to be a dud.



The owl babies are all doing fine. Two of them have a small bald areas on their chests. Not sure if the parents are picking at them, or if their feathers are just slower coming in, but I'm keeping an eye on them too.

Tangerine pulled a "sneaky" on me. Her and Echo's baby isn't weaned yet, and a several days ago right after the baby fledged, I put the divider in their cage to prevent them from starting a new clutch. Apparently they had other plans ... very FAST plans ... because she's got new eggs, and at least 2 of them are viable. Talk about not wasting any time! She's plucked the fledgling's back a little bit probably in an attempt to get it to "move along" so she can raise her new clutch. Hopefully the baby will be weaned before the new eggs hatch. Since the nest box was dirty from raising the first baby, I changed it out for a clean one and moved the eggs into it after I candled them. Here's a photo of Tangerine "levitating" (LOL - she's about to land) and the older chick in the nest box. The eggs are down inside the box.



They never let me get bored, do they? he he

Assuming there are no mishaps (you know the expression "Don't count your chickens before they hatch"), I should have some new youngsters up for adoption soon. :-)

Lastly, here's a quick photo of 3 of my 4 spice finches. The fourth one wouldn't sit still! ;-)