Will my canary abandon her chicks?

[darbella]

My hen canary laid a clutch of 4 eggs and all 4 hatched about 12 days ago. I used an enclosed nest and the only way to see the chicks was for me to use my camera phone to take pics. She sat and fed faithfully and today I noticed that there was an odor coming from the cage, so I took the nest out and looked in with a light and saw that one of the chicks had died. It may have been a few days ago because it was all flattened out under the other chicks. I took them out and repleced the fouled nesting material with fresh stuff, put the babies back and the nest back in the cage. I now see that she wont go into the nest, she WAS feeding them from the entrance. Will she abandon them all together because they are in my studio room which has not really got any heat and it is a little cool in there. Thanks for any advise. I have hand raised zebra finches before and other larger cage birds, but was not sure if what I did will cause her to abandon them.

 

[dwhite]

There are a few things for future that may help, if all hatch put a dummy egg in their, it can help keep the mom from squishing the babies accidently as some hens sit real tight.

Use an open nest, that is what canaries are used to, it is possible she isn't going into the next because she is unfomfortable, and at a certain eggs the babies will start to hang their butts over the edge of the next so they don't poop in the nest.