Why did my female zebra finch kill her eggs and offspring?

Question

i remember a about 2 or 3 years ago i had a male and female zebra finch and the female laid a few eggs, and she would kill the eggs! litteraly she would break the eggs! and she didnt break one of the eggs and when the egg hatched, the mom killed it like 1 week later! i was like wtf! child abuse! hahaha. any ideas why the mom did this?

Answer 1

it might have been that the mother was angry or stressed. or hungry and there was no other food. because they eat eggs too.....

Answer 2

the same thing happened to me three times!  the result is in lack of food or just stress.  the cage size also induces stress.  in some cases, it is the lack of water or bad water that does it.  if you want healthy eggs, 1. make them a nest like a birds.  2. get a bigger cage.  and 3. bring them outside once in awhile.  also, finches do not eat eggs.  sometimes the eggs could fall out of the nest.  finally, the eggs could be rotten.

Answer 3

A lot of animals kill their offspring in response to stress.  I'm not too familiar with finches, but I know a lot of different kinds of animals do this.  For example, most of the time when you read anything about breeding hamsters, they almost always caution you to make sure you give a pregnant or nursing hamster mom her space or a pregnant hamster will reabsorb the babies and a nursing hamster will literally eat the babies.  The increased attention that people tend to want to give them is too much.  I'm guessing that your finch was the same way.

Answer 4

Sometimes in nature, if an animal thinks the environment is too dangerous to raise young, they will not allow the young to survive. Obviously your finch thought the environment she was living in was not safe or comfortable. (not meaning you were a bad pet owner, but any bird in  a cage would feel that way!)