When Society Finches Can Breed and How to Manage It

1 Breeding Age and Season

Most types such as white and gray society finches can start breeding at 7 to 8 months, while smaller ones like the white-rumped, spotted, and ‘ten-sisters’ finches often begin at 4 to 5 months. A pair may produce 4 to 5 clutches a year of about 5 to 8 eggs each, with roughly an 85% hatch rate; the parents take turns incubating and chicks usually hatch in 15 to 20 days.

The best breeding seasons are spring and autumn. In winter, add warmth and nutrition to avoid chilling; in summer, breed only when cool, since heat and humidity breed bacteria and weaken chicks, so most keepers rest their birds in summer. Continuous breeding also harms the parents’ health.

2 Breeding Care

Diet: during breeding offer egg, millet, and cuttlebone for nutrition; stop the egg-food once laying begins and resume it after the chicks hatch. Housing: the cage need not be large, but to avoid stress from a new one, hang a small artificial nest (preferably shielded) in the existing cage so the birds can lay and incubate quietly.

Candling: around day 7 to 8 of incubation, wash and dry your hands, wear clean gloves, take the eggs out, and shine a flashlight through them. Vessels with veins and blood are healthy fertilized eggs; all-white eggs are infertile and black ones are dead, so remove the white and black eggs.

Chick growth: about a week after hatching chicks enter the pin-feather stage, open their eyes a bit later, and grow full feathers by 15 to 20 days. The first week is easy to hand-feed but survival is lower because they are weak; by two weeks they fully open their eyes, are more fearful yet stronger, and hand-rearing then has better survival.