I am happy to announce that my zebra finch pair is again pregnant, and it’s a triplets! Hehe. That’s not really the good news. The first clutch they had for this year, or ever, was a dud. The female sat on it for two weeks, and I didn’t bother to check on the eggs like what other breeders suggested, for personally, I found it intrusive.
I looked at the first clutch after two weeks of no hatching and both of the eggs were cracked. They didn’t smell bad for some reason, but I know from this article which I’ve read before that cracked eggs do not hatch. If only I had the initiative to check them early. Here’s a quote from zebrafinch.co.uk.
If the egg is cracked it is no longer good and you have a ‘bad egg’ on your hands. Just dispose of it. If not, lay the egg back in the nest gently and the parents should have no problem with it.
This time I plan to check their eggs after seven days of sitting. It has been three days already since the female sat on them 3 eggs, and I’m making a scratch paper out of our calendar to track the progress. Basically, knowing that your finches’ eggs are bad at the early stages saves the pairs trouble on trying to sit on them to no avail. Para hindi ma-stress ang nga ibon, ika nga.
I’m just a little surprised the zebras didn’t know they were sitting on duds. I’ve been to Sir Emer’s place in QC and saw gouldians throw their eggs out, and according to Sir Emer, the gouldians know when they have a bad egg. Ms. ladybird, ito rin po ba yung karanasan nyo sa gouldians nyo? I’m not sure about canaries, maybe Sir Albert “the warlock” can enlighten us. And seona, I know you have so many pairs. Do you check all of their eggs or you just wait it out ’til they don’t hatch to throw them away.
Sana magkwento kayo ng mga karanasan nyo sa mga basag at bugok na itlog ng inyong mga ibon. 
7 users commented in " What To Do With Cracked Eggs "
Follow-up comment rss or Leave a Trackbackpag aralan mo mag egg candling bro para di sayang ang araw nila sa pag incubate ng bugok o clear eggs
I used to check on every nest with the 40 breeding zebras that I have, candling every one of the 100 eggs every month is a tedious process and it doesn’t result to getting all the fertile eggs to hatch, there are times that the parents throw the eggs or chicks so I saved myself the trouble and just let them be. Zebras also know when they have infertile eggs, but they throw these eggs after the fertile ones have hatched. If they have ready nesting materials available, they could just bury the eggs underneath.
You can use masking tape to indicate the date of when your zebras first laid their eggs and that should help you track the dates for candling and hatching. Zebras usually lay one egg every day so depending on how many eggs you see when you check the nest, you can pretty much calculate when the first egg was laid.
As for your question regarding what to do with cracked eggs, i usually just throw it away because that thing could really smell after a few days. Believe me, your zebras is going to lay more than enough eggs for you to be worried about a cracked egg.
One problem with taking away infertile eggs is that it would induce the breeding pair to lay more eggs. It is true that some zebras don’t sit on a clutch of 3 eggs or less so if you have a clutch of 4 eggs they will end up abandoning the 2 fertile eggs if you take out the 2 infertile ones. For me, I just let them go through every clutch without bothering them.
My zebras are currently sitting on their 3 eggs now. The first clutch consisted of only two, and they also sat on it. Normal lang daw yung 2 eggs per clutch sabi ni Kurt.. my first pair came from him.
hi benji! yep, kinandle ko naman yung first clutch.. after two weeks nga lang. i’ll just have to wait 3 days more to candle this next clutch. By the way, hindi talaga candling yung ginagawa ko, kundi “cellphoning.” Yung mini-flashlight ng Nokia 1100 ang ginagamit ko! hehe. and i think it works.
seona, anong ibig mong sabihin with”they could just bury the eggs underneath” at “I just let them go through every clutch without bothering them.” Hindi mo na na rin inaalis yung bad eggs? I’m actually planning to do the same. Truth is, ok lang naman sa akin if they have bad eggs. I’m just thinking that they infinitely know better what to do with their eggs than I do.
One more thing, the first clutch was both infertile. so i think, kung hindi ko inalis yung mga itlog, baka hanggang ngayon, inuupuan pa rin nila yung first clutch. hehe.
Ibig sabihin nililibing nila yun bad eggs with nesting material instead of throwing it out. And yeah, I leave them alone until chicks come out of the nest, then after awhile, i see the unhatched eggs on the cage floor. The great thing about zebras is that you don’t really know what you’re going to get until they finish moulting, parang buying a pack of basketball cards, you don’t know what special cards you’re going to get. I have a Jumbo fawn pair that produced 3 jumbo BCs on their first clutch.
I think anything below 3 eggs in a clutch only happens when it’s the first clutch and usually the parents don’t know better than to sit and fly, this is the reason why the eggs don’t hatch. I have a pretty good hatch rate, the most that I had in a clutch was 7 and I currently have a jumbo fawn pair that has 5 chicks. On the average I think I get 4 chicks in a clutch.
Haha. Para pala silang chocolates ni Forrest Gump: “You’ll never know what you’re going to get.”
I don’t know if I want that many zebras like you.. pero kung magkaganun man, ipamimigay ko yung mga hindi ko kayang alagaan dito sa barangay namin, tsaka sa mga pinsan ko, basta ba aalagaan nila ng maayos.
And yup, this is just the second clutch of my first pair. I’m trying heavily to get another pair, pero wala kasing source dito sa Batangas. Hopefully makakabisita ako sa iyo kay Benji next year.. ehehe.
just got a call from Albert informing me that canaries never throw away their eggs. What he does is to provide the birds with nests that are a little deeper and more concave. This way the birds will be forced to sit on their eggs and will ensure that all eggs are being sat on because they all stay in the center.
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