BellaOnline Forums Home and Garden Birds newborn zebra finch

My zebra finch had her second baby with one egg remaining, but frightfully I found the baby on the floor of the cage, still moving, and not knowing what happened, I put it back in, the father went in and threw it back out of the nest, so horrifying, I took him out, warmed the baby up,and checked for limb or neck damage, things seemed fine, and I put it back in the nest where the Mother is attending it faithfully, My question and concern is if there may be any internal damage.
This was a very disturbing experience, it didn't happen with the first baby, they were both good parents.
Thanks for any advice you can give me.

Zebra Finch can either be excellent parents or just the opposite. A baby on the floor can mean one of several possibilities.
1) By accident, he was caught on one of his parents feet & was pulled out of the nest.
2) One of the parents threw him out because:
a) something is wrong with the baby & he may not live;
b) the baby has red eyes & one of the parents may feel it should not be fed;
c) the parent may be too young to successfully raise a full clutch;
d) the parent feels there is not enough food to successfully raise more than one baby;
e) some other reason that we will never know.

Unfortunately, you may not know if the baby suffered any internal injuries from the tossing. If the baby dies, it could either be from injuries - or it may be because something was wrong in the first place that caused him to be thrown out.

Raising baby birds can be a wonderful experience and/or a very disappointing experience and this can vary from clutch to clutch. Not every baby will live to fledge, but I hope your little guy makes it. Good luck.

Thank you for your response,,,the past hour I've been checking the baby and doesn't seem to be any movement, but Mother is still sitting, I will get him out if there's no change, not sure if he's sleeping.
You're right....breeding can go from one extreme to the other, I guess we must always be prepared.
Thanks again Mavis

Please let us know how the little guy does.

The little guy didn't make it....very sorry to say..one egg left...crossing my fingers..hopefully it is fertile and healthy.
Thanks for caring...it's always comforting to know I have your wonderful website to listen to my worries or triumphs!

I'm so sorry. <img src="/images/graemlins/frown.gif" alt="" />

I hope you have better luck with that last egg.

Things like that happened all the time when I was raising budgies. Except when I found them, the babies were dead. After seeing it enough times, it stopped bothering me. The one thing that bothered me everytime was ants.

Sorry to hear about your loss though... <img src="/images/graemlins/frown.gif" alt="" />

Does anyone have any good advice for a first time step mom of a Zebra Finch?
We don't have a baby yet but when we candled the egg, it is doing very well.

Let the parents look after the baby & just put lots of healthy food in the cage for them to feed it. Good luck. <img src="/images/graemlins/smile.gif" alt="" />