Hand Rearing Crimson Rosella

I need some information as I'm interested in hand-rearing a baby Crimson Rosella for the first time in my life. I hand reared parrots before, namely Cockatiels.

Is the Rosella very similar to the cockatiel in terms of feeding baby chicks?

With cockatiels, I seperate chicks from parents at 2 weeks old, hand rear them every 5 hours (10ml) for the third week and every 6 hours from the fourth week onwards.

Should I follow this pattern please? Thank you.

I think you really need to sit and think about why you want to breed birds so badly and stop making new threads about new species. Feeding baby birds is going to be the same basic principle whether it's a budgie or macaw chick. But there are big differences in size there.

My next question is how old are you? Do you live on your own, and make your own income? Way of transportation? Do you have the means to bring all these new bids you're wanting to the vet for proper care?

You've already established that you want to mass-breed birds and we do not condone this behavior on the forum. Don't you already have a pair of green cheeks and cockatiels you are breeding? How is that going? Why not concentrate on the bids you have and keep researching? GOOGLE is such a great resource for information.

itzjbean said:

I think you really need to sit and think about why you want to breed birds so badly and stop making new threads about new species. Feeding baby birds is going to be the same basic principle whether it's a budgie or macaw chick. But there are big differences in size there.

My next question is how old are you? Do you live on your own, and make your own income? Way of transportation? Do you have the means to bring all these new bids you're wanting to the vet for proper care?

You've already established that you want to mass-breed birds and we do not condone this behavior on the forum. Don't you already have a pair of green cheeks and cockatiels you are breeding? How is that going? Why not concentrate on the bids you have and keep researching? GOOGLE is such a great resource for information.

Click to expand...

I know why I want to breed birds, and that is for my love for them. Although this thread has nothing to do with breeding? So I'm not sure why you're asking me about breeding. I found a local breeder and I'm interested in buying and hand rearing a chick crimson rosella, that's all.

Not mass-breed no, again you're taking me all from the wrong ballpark here. I just want to support ( AND JUST THAT, SUPPORT ) not mass breed.... by mass breed I understand, a full time bird breeder making 50,000 dollars per year on breeding parrots, when I don't want to make even just 1c, all I earn will go towards toys, foods, adopting more birds and taking first hand learning experience from breeding different species of parrots.

Yes I do have a pair of green cheeks and a pair of 'normal' (no mutation) cockatiels which are bonded for life but that doesn't mean I should restrict myself to owning only 4 birds in my life no? The nice thing about birds, amongst other things, is the variation of colors, sizes, temperament, origins, etc. So why should I restrict and stop? No I won't, sorry.

To answer your questions, I'm 25 almost 26 years old, male, still living with my parents in their house, which is a three-floor building with two very spacious gardens that my father likes to beautify with various species of small birds (my father is a full time bird caregiver by the way, just not of parrots. Other species like Zebra Finches) and I intend to follow his steps. Now, I don't have much friends, I only have a girlfriend whom I get to see in the weekends. Birds are my friends. Bids are my family. If one dies, a part of me dies with it. Yes, I do make a decent income working as Court Assistant in my country, thankfully.

Anyways sorry if I'm being defensive itzjbean, it's just that I don't want to establish a bad reputation in this forum as my love for these birds is matched by only a few people I believe. It may not be the case, but that's why I believe and that's my opinion, an opinion I have a personal right to.

Anyways nothing personal itzjbean but I wanted to throw this out there. Please do not think me one of those 13-year old children that get a bird for the first time and they abandon him or find him dead after a couple of days because they forgot to feed it. I'm not like that. I'm an aspring bird lover and a Small-time (emphasis on small-time) breeder.

I apologize for length of post and hope I will be forgiven of my stupidity and lack of knowledge of parrots in my previous posts.

I thank you all.

I’m meaning this in the nicest way possible- what are you looking for out of owning birds? Some kind of beautiful “aviary” type setups to look at with little interaction or actual pets/companions or....? People can love birds and still want very different things out of them (and there is nothing wrong with well designed/maintained aviaries, but there are some species more suited than others to living in one). I get the impression, you might be looking more for aviary birds.

Crimson rosellas are typically kept as aviary birds, meaning it is less likely they will bond with or be particularly good companion birds. This is generally true of most rare parrot species- they’re rare because they didn’t make good companions and thus never became popular in the pet trade. That doesn’t mean that certain individuals won’t be good companions or that there is anything wrong with keeping this kind of bird.

I don't understand what you are trying to do at all...And I mean this in the nicest possible way, and with only the goal of trying to get you to understand why you need to take a break from breeding until you learn what in the world you're doing....Yesterday your original-post was quite upsetting to me and other experienced members of this forum, mostly because of how evident it was that you have not had any education or training/mentoring from anyone who is experienced in breeding/hand-raising parrots, and you don't even have any understanding of the most-basic fundamentals of bird breeding/hand-raising...And I'm really perplexed as to how myself and others could be bothered and upset by what you described that you've been doing and what you want to do as far as "having birds that will breed when YOU want then to instead of just during their natural breeding-seasons", which was particularly alarming, and YOU don't seem to be upset to learn that you know very little about what you have been doing, nor that what you did to your female Cockatiel in-particular could have killed her and resulted in the deaths of the babies of both clutches you bred in 3 months. I was really hoping that yesterday you would get a wake-up call and realize that you need to find a mentor or a pet shop that breeds their own birds, etc. who you can be taught by and observe BEFORE you breed anymore birds....And then here is another post from you today saying that you want to start breeding/hand-raising yet another species of parrot that you obviously know nothing about...And with yet another statement, this time about your prior hand-feeding practices, that yet again shows that you don't know what you're doing. And I just don't get it...

****While it's good that you pulled your babies no younger than 2 weeks-old and no older than 3 weeks-old (any sooner than 2 weeks-old and they'll most-likely die, usually from aspiration of formula into their lungs because they're just too small, and any older than 3 weeks-old and it's extremely difficult to get them to take hand-feedings from you at all), the problem is that your hand-feeding schedule is not correct...A 2 week-old baby bird needs to be hand-fed once every 2-3hours, including every 2-hours OVERNIGHT!!! A 3 week-old baby bird needs to be hand-fed once every 3-4 hours, including every 3-4 hours OVERNIGHT!!! A 4 week-old baby bird needs to be hand-fed once every 3-4 hours just like a 3 week-old baby bird, but they can now go overnight for 6 hours without being fed...A 5 week-old baby bird needs to be hand-fed once every 4-5 hours, and depending on the species of parrot they may start the Abundance-Weaning process at 5 weeks-old, Cockatiels do start at 5 weeks-old, so you should first introduce them to solid-food at this age...And the hand-feedings need to continue to happen once every 4-5 hours from 5 weeks-old forward, with the total number of hand-feedings per day as well as the amount of formula eaten in each feeding determined BY EACH, INDIVIDUAL BIRD, NOT BY YOU!!!

***Feeding a baby bird who is only 2 weeks-old and who you just pulled from the nestbox only once every 5-hours (as well as what you were feeding a 3 week-old baby bird) and not feeding them overnight until they hit at least 4 weeks old is going to result in the same malnutrition and nutritional-deficiencies that breeding a female twice in 3 months will, but it will also result in long-term/life-long developmental issues and health issues, both physical and neurological, just as improper Abundance-Weaning practices will...Assuming that you're selling your babies and not planning on keeping them all, this is setting-up the people who bought them for future issues and Avian Vet bills...But more-importantly right now is the fact that yet again you need to stop breeding/hand-raising until you get someone who knows what they are doing and who has a lot of experience to mentor you!!!

Bird-breeding/hand-raising is not a hobby that you can "learn as you go along"! You're putting the lives of both your breeders and the babies you purposely breed right in your hands, and if those hands don't know what they are doing, they shouldn't be responsible for the lives of other living creatures...That's really the bottom-line, and you need to start taking what you are doing seriously and stop looking at it as something that you can just do willy-nilly without any education or training at all. It's unethical, it's totally unfair to both the birds you are breeding and the babies you are producing, and also unfair and unscrupulous as far as anyone you sell a baby to.

Everyone has to start somewhere, yes. But that "somewhere" when it comes to breeding/hand-raising any animal should not be just gathering the supplies/equipment that you think you need, buying a few breeding-pairs of birds, throwing a nest-box in with them, and then just figuring it out as you go along, or with the help of videos on YouTube or tutorials you find written online by people you don't even know or that might not have a clue what they're doing themselves. I don't know how else to get this across to you but to point-out your own statements regarding your breeding and hand-raising practices as being completely wrong and potentially fatal/life-effecting for your breeders and their babies, and telling you that you need to find an experienced mentor BEFORE you breed any more babies again. Your Cockatiels aren't going anywhere, and if you do everything you need to do to stop them from breeding and your females from producing/laying anymore eggs (and any other birds you are breeding) for the meantime, until AFTER you get some proper HANDS-ON education and training, you can properly and with knowledge this time get them breeding again, and you can also buy more breeding-pairs of parrots any time in the future as well once you know what in the world you are doing...And this shouldn't be an issue for you if you are truly not breeding/wanting to breed all of these birds to make money, but rather just because you love birds and you want to breed them and hand-raise the babies for other, ethical reasons...In fact, if that's really the reason you're doing this to begin with, then you should WANT TO STOP BREEDING THEM until you get the proper education and training.

***And as far as what Itzjbean said about you already making it extremely clear that you do in-fact want to and already have been trying to "Mass-Breed" birds, she's exactly correct, and you cannot in any way deny that she's not, because everything that you've already said and done in both your post yesterday and now this one today has screamed it loudly without hesitation, from "I want to find parrot species that will breed when I want them to breed instead of just during their natural breeding-seasons", to breeding your female Cockatiel twice in 3 months, allowing her to lay a total of 9 eggs in the two clutches, and then writing about it like you were extremely excited about it, proud, and almost bragging about how many eggs you've gotten out of her in such a short amount of time, along with numerous other statements you made in your post yesterday regarding wanting to find as many species of parrots as you possibly can "who are known to breed year-round"...There are literally, no exaggeration, hundreds of thousands of parrots in the US alone, right this minute, who need to find responsible, stable, loving homes, whether on sites like Craigslist and Kijiji, in Avian Rescues and Animal Shelters, in Avian Foster-Homes, etc...And those are only the Parrots who are being Re-Homed or that have been surrendered to Rescues and Shelters!!! That's not even thinking about the hundreds of thousands of Parrots that are currently for sale in pet shops, bird shops, from private breeders, from Parrot "Brokers", and from Mass-Vendors!!!

So we in this Parrot Community do not support the mass-breeding of birds/parrots by ANYONE, obviously with good reason, including people who are extremely experienced and knowledgeable Bird Breeders and Hand-Raisers that know what they are doing....So anyone who makes the statements that you have both yesterday and today are going to raise some eyebrows and ruffle some feathers...But then to make it quite obvious that you don't know what you are doing in the first-place and that you're putting your breeders and the babies that you're producing at great-risk for multiple physical and neurological health-issues, as well as for death, and that you seemingly don't care after you're made aware that your practices are unethical, incorrect, and dangerous and that you need to get the proper education and training before you breed anymore birds, well that's pretty difficult to understand, let alone to support.