Thursday's Update

The three eggs are still being incubated. I can't wait until they hatch! It should be sometime between now and Tuesday or Wednesday.  :-)

Remember the hen who flat refused to put her eggs in a nest, choosing to lay them in the floor instead?  I moved that trio to the community cage, along with 3 other societies.  I put several nests into the cage, including a canary nest and several Abba nest boxes.

That l'il stinker and her companions claimed one of the Abba boxes, and they FLAT REFUSE to let the other birds near it.  Only those 3 are allowed in their "club".  The others sleep in the canary nest.  I keep watching to see if she lays more eggs, hopefully this time IN the nest, but she hasn't as of yet.  Edit:  I just looked, and YES, she HAS laid an egg!  And she put it IN the nest!  Yippee! :-)

She went from royally HATING a nest, to LOVING it, literally overnight.  Weird l'il bird!  LOL!

The 3 Eggs Are Looking Good!

The 3 eggs in the bottom cage (chocolate pied trio; crested dad) are still looking good! :-)  They should start hatching somewhere around September 1-3, which is 14-16 days after incubation started.  I hope there's a crested baby or three! ;-)

The new societies are all doing fine as well.

Pics of New Societies

Here are some photos of the new societies. They were napping. L'il sleepyheads! :-)

New Societies :-)

Just got back from the bird fair.  It was PATHETIC.  :-(  There was only one finch vendor there, and although he has some nice birds, he has very few to choose from.  I did get 5 fawn pied societies and one buff society from him.  They weren't separated by gender, but one is definitely male because he's singing right now.  I'll have to watch them for a few days.  I'm hoping for 4 females and 2 males, but last time 9/10 of the societies I bought were male.  LOL!  Oh, and two of them are crested.  :-)

I'll get some photos in a day or two, when they're settled in.

Community Cage Is Set Up!

We've got the new community cage set up and ready to go.  It's about 32" wide x 36" tall by 20" deep ... or thereabouts.  One hour until it's time to leave for the bird fair!  :-D

I've decided to get 2 non-crested chocolate females and a fawn M/F/F trio.  The two chocolate females will replace the two fawn females in the top cage (they'll go to the community cage).  The middle cage will get the fawn trio, and the current occupants of the middle cage will go to the community cage.  They've decided they're not going to foster the egg after all.  All they're doing is sleeping and napping on it, so I'll move it to the community cage and maybe somebody there will incubate it.  If not, well, I tried.  :-)

Yep, It's DIS :-(

The foster egg is DIS. :-( I'm sure it's not the foster parents' fault. They've been incubating their l'il hearts out.  It's just one of those things, I suppose.  The other 3 eggs still show as being viable. :-)

The bird fair is this morning.  I'm going to pick up a few society hens.  I'll probably wait on the male diamond dove for now.

I Believe They're Incubating! :-)

So far it looks like they're incubating the egg! :-)

There hasn't been a second egg yet, but the hen is back in her favorite corner, BESIDE the nest. >rolleyes<

L'il Stinker!

In my stack of cages, the top cage has three societies ... a male and two females.  That's where the foster egg came from.  One of the females laid a second egg (which fell from the perch and broke) the day after she laid the first one, then she stopped laying.

Now she's laying again.  I found an egg carefully laid on the grate, perfectly intact, when I got up.  There are two nests for her to choose from, but she hangs around in the left/front corner of the cage while she's laying, rather than putting the eggs in one of the nests.  Afterwards, the eggs are totally ignored.  I even moved one of the nests down to "her" corner, but she squeezes into the area beside it rather than going into the nest itself.  She's sitting in the corner again as I type this, so I'm willing to bet another egg is on the way.

Since it's too late to add any more eggs to the bottom cage, I put the intact egg in the middle cage.  Short of throwing it away, which I hate to do, it's the only place I can put it.  I guess we'll see if the middle quartet will foster.  I'll probably move at least one of the quartet out, so the egg won't get smooshed underneath the four of them when they sleep.

I still plan to pick up 3-4 females at the bird fair tomorrow.  :-)  I'm thinking about getting a male diamond dove, too, (no female) but I don't know for sure yet.  If I do, it'll go in the community cage, which I still haven't set up yet.

Good & Possibly Bad News

The first (foster) egg may be DIS. I'm not 100% sure. There is an air space in the egg that's larger than usual, which can be a sign that the egg is drying up.  I still saw veins when I candled it, but the large air space is concerning.  The egg is somewhat discolored, too.  I put it back in the nest with the other eggs, and will wait and see what happens next week.

On a brighter note, the other three (biological) eggs just candled as being viable ... all 3 of them.  :-)  They're due to start hatching around September 1, assuming all goes well.

Still Incubating! :-)

My societies are still incubating, taking turns. Sometimes one sits at a time; other times, two of them will sit.  I'm not sure how they decide whose turn it is, but apparently they've got their system down pat!  :-)

If all goes well, the hatch date for the first (foster) egg should be Monday, August 27.  I'm going to try to band it ASAP before the others hatch (assuming they're viable; I haven't candled them).  That way I can tell which is the foster chick.  :-)

Still planning to go to the bird fair this weekend.  Can't wait!  :-D

Four Eggs, Total! :-)

There are now 4 eggs, total, and the foster egg is viable! I just candled it, and sure enough, there's a teeny heartbeat. :-)

Wouldn't You Know It! LOL!

The trio that's incubating the single egg from the top cage now has 2 eggs of their own.  I went to candle the single egg to see if it's viable, and to my surprise, there were 2 additional eggs in the nest.  :-)  Rather than disturb them, I'll wait a few days and then candle them, in case they're not finished laying.

Still Incubating :-)

The trio in the bottom cage are still incubating the single egg from the top cage.  They're taking very good care of it.  :-)  There haven't been any more eggs in the top cage.  I should know if it's good within 3-4 days.  :-)

No New Eggs

There haven't been any more new eggs, and the hen (and her two companions) were totally ignoring the egg she laid the other day, so I moved it to the lower cage.  Within TWO MINUTES, one of the hens hopped into the nest and started incubating it.  WOW!  She was practically grinning ear-to-ear, and couldn't get on the egg fast enough, snuggling down onto it immediately.  Too cute! :-)

Another Egg, But It Broke :-(

The same hen laid another egg yesterday, but she laid it while sitting on a perch, and it crashed to the cage floor and broke.  :-(  None of them have approached the nest again.  I'll wait a couple of days and see what happens, but if they continue to ignore the nest, I may move that single egg down to the bottom cage, where those societies are actually using their nest.  Perhaps they'll incubate it.  We'll just see how it goes.  I have a feeling that this particular hen is on the younger side, and perhaps she doesn't realize that eggs are supposed to go in the nest.  ;-)

An Egg!

LOL! After mentioning just hours ago that there were no eggs, I just found one in the floor of the top cage.  I had a feeling that something was up, because one of the hens had been hanging around that particular corner.  The egg was perfectly intact, laid carefully on the cage grate.  I'm not sure why she chose that spot rather than one of the two nests in their cage, but I gently picked up the egg, moved one of the nests to her chosen place, and put the egg in the nest.  If there's another egg on the way, hopefully she'll put it in the nest this time.  She and the male are studying the nest as I type.  :-)

Bird Fair in a Couple of Weeks :-)

It's almost time for the bird fair in Chattanooga again.  :-)  I'm planning to set up one more cage (a total of 4), which will be a community/non-breeding cage.  In it will be my non-breeding societies and any youngsters that happen to come along in the future.  I'll probably get a male diamond dove for the community cage at the bird fair.  Just a male; no female.  I'll probably pick up a couple of extra female societies while I'm there, if they have them separated by gender.  No zebra finches, though! LOL!  ;-)  It sure is hard to resist them.

The societies are all doing fine.  The one that was a puffy is still a little fluffed up, but acts/eats/drinks/poops just fine, so perhaps that's just the way it sits on the perch.  If it was sick, it would surely have obvious symptoms by now.  It's not SUPER-puffy or anything ... just a little more puffy than the others.

The trio on the bottom of the cage rack has padded the nest I gave them, and they just recently started sleeping in it (finally).  The middle quartet doesn't have any interest in their nest.  The top trio has mated a few times that I've seen, but there hasn't been any interest in either of their two nests.  No eggs in any of the three cages.  That's fine.  If they have youngsters, okay, and if they don't, that's okay too.  :-)  I do think I'll pick up some woven-type nests at the bird fair.  That's the kind of nests they had before, and I don't think they like these open canary nests quite as much.  I just like the canary nests and Abba nest boxes because there's no chance of their toenails getting tangled.  With woven nests, the fibers can snag their toenails, and can cause broken legs, or worse.  I'll just have to keep a super-close eye on them, and perhaps I can come up with a way to hang the woven nests so that the birds can't sit on top of them.  The tops of the nests seem to be more "grabby" than the interior, for some reason.