My Society Finches

I bought my first two finches on Wednesday, October 13, 2010. They are Society Finches and I have been reading all about them and then when I went to the bird store there they were. Since I am new to the finch world I am starting small and with an easier species. I will try to find as much information as I can on finches and post it here, that way I can have everything I need in one forum. I will try and add pictures soon, if they will set still.
I do not know what sex they are but I think I have one male at least he has made a small attempt at a song.

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I did say in my previous post that I thouht I had a male, but the more I read about males they all sing. My does not sing. When i first got them one of them would "chirp" loud for a second but no song. My daughter brought me one finch egg that a pet store was throwing in the trash because they were cleaning cages and she asked if she could have it. I put it in a nest to see if my two finches would sit on it. They ignored until the fourth day and then started incubating it and on the fifth day they decided to lay their own egg. They have continuted to lay one egg a day and as of 11/9 they have laid 7 eggs. I am pretty sure they are not fertile because I still think there both females and by putting the one egg in there from the pet store triggered the egg laying.
The pet store egg has been incubating for 14 days as of today 11/10, so I don't think it will hatch either.
Both of them incubate and only leave the nest one at a time.
I am leaving all the eggs for another week which would be 14 days from when the first egg was laid.
They are eating boiled egg chopped with the egg shell and broccoli plus they have oyster shell in a seperate bowl which is always available. I have a cuttle bone in their cage but I don't see them eating any so I have scraped some off and put with their egg food.

The eggs that my two females laid totaled 8 but of course were not fertile, so I did get rid of them.
On November 22, 2010 my daughter took me to meet a breeder who was selling 1 pair of Societies and their 4 weaned chicks. So now I have went from 2 Societies to 8.
Now I know I have a male, he is crested and sings!!

On the second day I could tell there were two males out of the four chicks so I took those two males and put them in with my two females so they would not try to breed with their sisters and I knew they were unrelated to my two females.

They all got along but seemed to have divided the cage, the males only stayed at one end and only wnet to the middle of the cage and the females did the same. Now after the second week they are now more freindly and sit on the same branch but they sleep in seperate nests, which I thought they would all pile together in one. The males are singing a lot but my females are not interested. That is good because they are still to young.

The other cage with mom and dad plus their two females all pile together in one nest even though I have two nests in their cage also, but then they are all used to each other.

My new crested who I will call Spike (the male) has mated with his mate and she laid an egg on December 2nd and today there are 3 eggs. My concern is that when these eggs hatch will they be ok with the other 4 sitting on them in the same nest. The second nest I have in their cage is right next to theirs and I was hoping the two would sleep in that one, but so far that hasn't happened.

Will update soon.

As of 12/7/10 I have 6 eggs in the cage with Spike and 4 eggs in the cage with the two females I already had which is where the two males from Spike's clutch are.

The two females that I put the 2 males in with sleep with the eggs in their own nest and the two males sleep in their own nest. I always thought Societies all slept together. Since the 2 males don't really spend time with the 2 females, I don't know if they ever mated so not sure if their eggs will be fertile.

In spikes cage all four birds sleep in the same nest, but I guess they have done this since they were hatched.

On 12/22/10 I had a chance to look in the nest and saw my first new baby society
When I checked later there were 3 babies, so I guess they started hatching on 12/19/10.
I started counting from the day I saw them incubating which I thought was 12/7/10 but they must have started incubating after 3 eggs were laid which would have been on 12/4/10.
Incubation varies on which article you read. Some say 12 and some say 16.
Now all eggs have hatched and I have 7 babies (1 egg did not hatch) and they are in a small wicker nest. Mom and Dad are feeding boiled egg and three kinds of seed and the babies are growing bigger each day. My only worry is that all 4 finches pile in that nest even though I have one hanging right next to it hoping 2 of them will move over, but so far they only go to the other nest during the day and for short periods.

Since I sit next to there cage I can see Mom and Dad taking turns feeding and they feed about every hour and half.

To continue on this I wrote more in the breeding section under 7 fledglings. :flower:

My first two original finches had 8 new hatchlings, there eyes are open now and I had to move them to a kleenex box and zip tie it to the cage. They kept falling out of the little wicker nest which I say not to use, but I didn't think there was a male in the cage
So now I have 36 societies There nest is higher up and I couldn't see in it then I started to hear them and had to get up on a chair to see them. There was one egg that didn't hatch and it looked like in the beginning one of them got smashed when four adults piled in one little wicker nest, I will never use those nests again, they shouldn't even sell them even if you only have finches and they hatch babies the nest will never be big enough.

I can relate to what you said about the small wicker nest. I had several nests in the flight they were all the enclosed bamboo nests small and large, My society pair decided to start their 2nd clutch in one of the smaller bamboo nest and I didn't realize she had laid 7 eggs.

Once the chicks hatched and were getting close to fledging I had to take drastic action and move the chicks to a larger bamboo nest, I got very lucky the parents are pretty good about me messing with their nest. I was so afraid they would fall out.

ranchnanny, I do not know why they even sell those small nest, I don't think any finches and their chicks would fit, I got them when I bought my first two finches because I didn't know any better and thats when I started this forum a year ago today to maybe help others who are new to finches.
That is a good picture showing the chick and the nest and I know how you felt moving them to a bigger nest because of the parents not going back to the new one, I was so nervous and it did take a while but when I put a spray of millet in the new nest they went back.
I found the bigger covered nest at a bird show but until then I used kleeenex boxes and now I have baskets that I cut the handle off and zip tie them to the cage. The only problem if you go too big is the eggs can roll and not get incubated, but so far they put in a lot of nesting material and make their own little nest inside the big one.

Those small nest are only fit for maybe a goldbreast waxbill...they are so tiny that they actually are roomy enough!

I never thought of those, when I look at my orange cheeks I am wondering if they would have enough room. When I first got them I had a nest in their cage but they never slept in it and still don't, I even put a nest at the bottom of the cage because I read they like to build low but that didn't work either but I think there all the same sex anyway like my spices.