I wouldn't recommend cleaning right now. Might stress them out.

With any kind of bird, if the nest needs to be cleaned the parents will do it (but I don't know of any bird species where the parents clean a nest that's being used). If the parents don't clean it, it's a good sign that it doesn't need to be cleaned! It's possible that the mess might offend humans, but the birds don't care and it might help strengthen the chicks' immune system.

do you remember by any chance how I had MOLD growing inside the nestbox? I don't know what the reason was, I guess high humidity + warm temperatures... I had iti with one clutch but never with another... I am sure it would cause damage to the chicks if I didn't clean it. When I replaced bedding, I had mold again a few days after. The bedding (in the bag) looked fine..

If there's an active problem like mold, bugs, or wet soggy bedding in the nest than you need to change it. But you don't need to clean it just because there's a lot of chick poop in there. It's normal and natural for them to grow up surrounded by their own droppings.

Well, it depends on whether or not their finch's cage area is humid (or either inside or outside). I wasn't a part of this community that time, so you can't expect me to remember that.

What kind of bedding do they use? It could depend on the type of bedding. Usually people use a different kind of material, than our "bedding" for nest boxes. Finches in general are more acustomed to using long, skinny materials for nesting, like grass or hay. My mom always put pots of some kind of vine-like plant in her finch aviary, and they would basically tear it apart, then weave it into their little basket-nests.

What are they using for a nest, by the way? Wood is able to absorb and hold moisture, which could be why your bedding got molded.

Did the topic starter's wife say anything about mold? Like Carolyn says, clean if there is an active problem. Otherwise, leave it alone. Basically, you don't want to disturb the nest more than necessary.

My uncle has an outdoor aviary. But it isn't just one whole big thing were all the birds are flying around together. He has individual, separate cages to keep each species of birds.

In one of them, he had a bunch if budgies, and the budgies had babies. They hatched and were looking out of the nest. They were so cute!

But one day, it rained hard. All the birds looked fine. Even the babies looked happy.

But one day, my uncle and I looked inside the nest. We saw all 3 of them, dead. They had this weird liquid thick thing on the bottom of the nest. As if the water had filtered out but left the thick bacteria inside.

It was so sad. Just don't let your babies get their nest wet and molt (as said before) so your babies won't be lost.

no she doesn't say anything about mold. Mold was in my house in the wooden cockatiel nestbox - all of a sudden. It was with the second clutch (born in January) while the first clutch (born in October) had no problems with mold. I am thinking, maybe it happened because I was using humidifier... hard to say, and it's in the past. Carolyn probably remembers that situation.
I think topic starters hang up ball with grass stuffed in it that the finches pulled out and used in the nest. They use a commercial basket type nest, as far as I understood.

Alrighty. I was just wondering, since it seems that wood absorbs and hold moisture, I would imagine it would be likely to get moldy. But since it was your bedding, then that's something slightly strange.

But I don't think they should run into any trouble, from here on out.

If the babies' poop is very wet or if water leaks into the nestbox somehow it can lead to mold growing in the nest. I've never had a problem with it, but I live in the desert so the poop dries out pretty fast. It might be more of a problem in a humid climate. Zebra finches and cockatiels are both native to the Australian Outback so they evolved to breed in a dry climate.

Wow, this was an active topic in my short abscence...

Just to put in my 2 cents ( a little late, but hey...)

In my experience with finches, they do lay eggs, in my case even up to 10! They don't always hatch and when they do some chicks die, it is just the way it goes... On avarage I have 4 to 5 chicks survive / nest.
I do check on them on a daily basis, even poke a hole in the nest to reach the chicks (since I do try to put rings on them, specially cause they all pretty much look the same. Makes it easier for me to select the ones I want to keep) But during the time the chicks are still in the nest I don't bother them on other times. (so feeding, refreshing water and checking the nest all happens in one go)

As far as nesting material goes, I provide coir for my canaries and finches alike. I also mow the grass in my aviary and let it lay in there for them to use after it has reached a good lenght. The nest gets cleaned a lot during the first few weeks by the parent birds, but when the chicks start getting older and start growing feathers, the cleaning stops and poop gets shoved up to the sides or the enterance/exit of the nest where it starts building up, so that is normal.

I have never had to deal with mold and I'm unsure if I did what I'd do. But then again I don't expect to have any problems with it, not with the finches at least. All of the nests have been made (up untill now) in the dry areas of the aviary. I do expect to have mold with the budgies however... To prevent that I take out all chicks once a week to clean them and to clean out the nest. But that's budgies... they do poop all over the nestbox (a wooden one) and it does get a bit moist...

That is all