Zebra finches are one of the easiest birds to keep. They readily breed and are very chirpy and active birds. They can live on a normal foreign finch seed, supplemented with greens, millet sprays, cuttlebone and most vegetables etc, especially cucumber I have found to be a favourite. Soft food such as eggfood can be provided once a week or so sometimes, everyday when rearing chicks.

They will live happily in a cage or an avairy, here they are in an avairy, see bottom of page,  and will chirp away all day long. Here i have tied some lleylandi cut offs to the avairy to give them a bit of privcacy and protection, but during the winter months they ideally need an indoor section wher they can go when the weather becomes rough. It is also a good idea to screw PVC sheeting too the avairy just to give a bit more protection from the wind etc.

They come in many mutations, in the picture below the one on the left is a normal, grey, male and is the native colour/how they exist in the wild. On the right is a pure white female, these two are currently paired up and nesting. We currently have, normals, fawns, CFW's (chestnut flanked whites), lightbacks and whites. There are many more including black cheeked, black faced, black breast, and pied amongst others.

Zebras are very easy to sex. The males will have the bright cheek patches, wing markings on side and the bars on the chest whereas the females wont have any of these just the tear stripe below the eye. In the picture above from the left we have a male, a female, a male and a female.

 Zebra finches will breed readily with just a basic wicker nest, and simple nestboxes can be made from old milk cartons. Below are some that have just recently fledged. They typically fledge at about 16-21 days of age. When rearing chicks eggfood needs to be provided. A simple mixture available in most pet shops will be ok, such as EMP or something like that, in which you add water to make it. The hen will lay about 3-7 eggs and will start sitting after about the third egg has been laid. The chicks will hatch between the 11th and 12th day of incubation, later fledging the nest between two and three weeks of age. They dont get their adult colours until they have been through their moult. These have not been throgh their moult and have only just fledged the nest: These were hatched and reared in a simple wicker nest. It's parents are both pure normals, so this will be a normal as well.

 This chick is less than a week old. It is a fawn, its parents are a normal female and a fawn male. It has been hatched in an outdoor avairy. To see my avairy setup scroll down.

 (This page was last updated on 07/02/09)

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