Does anything need to be done (by humans) when the first baby hatched but seems to be dead?
(the topic starter is probably awaiting pre-approval as they don't have enough posts)

There's nothing waiting for approval, the poster apparently hasn't come back yet.

They can try warming the baby up. Chilled babies often appear to be dead, but they may revive if you warm them up. A heating pad can be used for this, but human body heat is even safer since there's no risk of overheating. They can hold the chick in their hand until it feels warm, or put it in a small cloth bag and hang it around their neck so it's against their skin, more or less over their heart.

I apologize for intruding.

When my zebra finches breed all I do is provide the eggfood suggested here.
I make sure they have acces to the eggfood every day, right up until the point I see the chicks are leaving the nest. At that point I give the eggfood 3 times a week and drop it to once a week when I notice they have stopped begging for food.

The rest I leave up to the parents.

Expect a lot of nests, zebra finches breed like mice...

Judging from the last question about the chick apearing dead I take it the eggs have hatched?

Main thing to do is to not disturb the nest too much. Once a day is plenty.
I heard the parent birds might stop caring for the chicks if you disturb them too much. Haven't had this happen to me (yet) though.

just my 2 cents.

Sorry for not coming on more... My mind is elswhere lateley...

It's ok, Bob, things come up. It's nice to hear from you again.

And yes, it's not recommended to disturb the nest too much. One could possibly take the baby out, to see if it is dead or not. Maybe try to warm it up in your hands, or something.

I don't know how one would put a heating pad under it though. Zebra finches don't usually use "nesting boxes". Instead, they use artificial finch nests (in captivity), which resemble the structure of their nests in the wild. I guess one could have a box, with the hole cut out right, but the finches usually prefer to have it in a high place. It depends on what they have for the zebra finches to nest in.

This is very true... I give them acces to nesting materials and they build the nest from that in high places or places you can't reach very easy... even though I've got 3 nestboxes up for them (mind I have only one male). (the enterance holes are too small for the canaries).

When you check on the chick you can hold it in your hands for a bit, but as soon as you see it's alive I'd put it back. If it's dead... remove it.

at least one did. Probably more by now.
thank you for all your help everyone.
Could somebody tell me what the normal size of a newly hatched baby should be?

This finch forum thread has pictures of new hatchlings in a plastic spoon to give you an idea of the size: http://www.finchforum.com/viewtopic.php?f=11&t=10200

Here's one of the pics:

thanks! so fragile!

Indeed, they do start out tiny and fragile. I mean, they are still tiny when they grow up, but they're a bit less fragile.

Zebra Finches are one of the hardier species, which may be surprising because of their size (though I have noticed that the smaller species tend to be more well adjusted, for some reason).

Carolyn, I looked at that forum. The person has great pictures of the growth process, but what intruiges me is specifically the picture of the chick next to one-day-old chicken.

It is adorable, yes, but the person says that the chicken hatched from an egg at Trader Joe's.
It's just like: "What?" I usually get my eggs at fries, though it would scare me, if I were to open one, and there would be a developing chicken inside. I'd imagine the egg was bought while the embryo was at an early stage, and somehow survived being refrigerated (probably recently stocked at the time).