Kyle’s article on Zebra finches. Bio provided by Kyle’s Mother. Kyle is 11½ years old and will attend the 6th grade. "School Scoop" is the schools newsletter, which he edits. Kyle is a great soccer player, lacrosse player and he just got his brown belt in Kempo Karate.

Life is like a prize. You almost can never find out what can happen in life’s journey. That’s what happened to me. I have two zebra finches. One is a male named Whisky and the other is a female named Brandy. We (my mom, sister, and I) got these finches in August 2002. Now, they have grown up and miraculously had four eggs.

A cluster of eggs is called a clutch. As soon as my mom found out about the eggs, she went to Petco to get advice. They told her to look at the eggs and hold them in the light. If any of them were clear, they were bad eggs. But if they appeared red they were fertile. When my mom checked the eggs, three were fertile. My mom accidentally dropped one of them, but we thought that one was clear.

They were doing magnificently until they hatched into little chicks the size of your pinky nail. Brandy and Whisky had to take a lot of care of the chicks to make sure that they were fed and clean. At the beginning, the babies were so sensitive, that if you touched them they could die. The parents couldn’t kill them because of the feathers that the parents have on their chest. At the beginning, the babies’ feathers were white and the skin was black.

Now that they are almost grown up and strong, we can hold them in our hands and they have dark feathers and a black beak. All of the babies have a very soft and bold spot on the back of their neck. It is very sensitive like a soft spot on a human baby’s head. We feed the parent’s hard-boiled eggs, lettuce, bread, and a variety of seeds to give to the babies. The parents have to regurgitate the food. That means, that they have to chew up the food in their mouth, swallow it, and spit it right back out into the babies’ mouth. But, now, it seems that the babies are grown up enough to eat food on their own.

The babies have still not developed their full form. Their beaks and gender highlights will start to produce at about the 9-week mark. Signs of gender are spots on the side of their cheeks, beak colors, and body color. Right now, the baby finches are starting to develop small signs of gender. We also named them Lilu and Coran. Coran is expected to be a boy because he has developed a black streak on his chest that signifies he could be a male. Although, we expect Lilu to be a female because she has no stripe on her chest. The boy will have a darker beak than the girl because of gender. With mostly all birds, the male will be pretty colorful, but the female will become very dark colored so that if she were in the wild, she could blend into her surroundings. The consequence of the male having a colorful body is that in the wild, he could attract predators and draw the attention away from the female, to him.

One day, my mom was holding one of the birds on the front porch and the bird accidentally flew away. In a way, I felt happy for him because now, he can live in the wild. Ever since one of the birds ran away, it seemed that the babies and the parents really notice it and started to react to it. The babies, although, really got more room in the nest. The nest also is pretty small so the babies and the parents can’t take up too much room.

My love for these birds is really important and I really love them.

Article © Kyle Farook 2003