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How to Care for Newborn Domestic Finches

Finches are small birds with large beaks and long, flat heads. Some finches have brightly colored breasts. All finches are distinguished by loud, melodic chirping songs which fill the neighborhoods and homes they reside in and around. If you are raising domestic finches, it's important to provide proper care so you can help them mature to adulthood. If you start with a breeding pair of finches, make sure you place them in a cage at least two feet long by one foot wide by eight inches high to ensure they have adequate space to lay eggs.

Things You'll Need

Large finch cage (2 feet by 1 foot by 8 inches)
2-3 bamboo finch nests
Facial tissue cut into thin strips
Burlap strips

Instructions

- 1
  Fit a large finch cage with two to three bamboo nests designed for finches. Cut a few pieces of facial tissue and burlap into thin (1/4-inch thick) strips and lay them at the bottom of the cage for the mating finch pair to use as bedding for their eggs.
- 2
  Watch your finches, waiting for them to lay between one and eight eggs. Wait for baby finches measuring about one inch in length to hatch from fertile eggs about 13 days after being laid. Watch the mating pair carefully to see that they are properly feeding the new hatchlings.
- 3
  Provide your finch pair with extra millet, seed, soft fruit and scrambled eggs to feed the baby finches. Observe the parents eating the food and regurgitating it into the nest to the babies. If the pair seems uninterested in feeding or caring for the baby finches, put the babies into a smaller cage with a nest full of tissue and burlap strips. Keep the babies warm with a heating lamp and feed them with a tincture for three to four weeks.
- 4
  Provide soft foods and millet to the babies. They will grow into fledglings and eventually juvenile finches that learn to eat on their own and fly from their nests.

Animals & Science