Guilt-free kidnapping

We'll be leaving our Florida winter home soon to migrate back to North Carolina, which means moving the finches into their travel cages for the trip home. Victor & Pearl had been doing a great job raising their 3 little ones, but I figured there was no way that they would handle the disruption of moving to a different cage for a 2 day trip and continue to feed the little ones. So my plan has always been that I would take over as Mommy and hand feed the babies as soon as I move Victor and Pearl to a travel cage.





I felt bad about the fact that I would need to "kidnap" the little ones, but Victor and Pearl made it easy for me two days ago when they abandoned the nest box. We had the carpets cleaned and I moved their cage into another room for a few hours, and that's all it took - no more baby feeding. Even after I moved the cage back to the original location, they wouldn't return to the nest. I fed the babies every couple of hours, but left them in the nest until evening hoping that the parents would resume their duties. But they didn't, so they are mine now. Step-mom and babies are doing fine.


gouldian finches