curious about hand feeding/rearing

[MikeyTN]

Also to add to what Beth is saying about using lubricant. You can hold them over some steam to help with passing the egg as well.

 

[Kinny]

I pull my parrots from the nest at about 2.5 - 3 weeks old. Sometimes I have to pull earlier because the Mums sometimes don't feed every chick properly, in a large clutch there's just about always at least 1 chick who isn't being fed nearly enough, so i pull a little earlier. The parents don't mind because they both do so much and get so tired, so I think they sort of enjoy the break. I always let the parents and babies see each other every week, for the parents benefit mostly.

If done correctly, hand-feeding can help save the lives of the chicks (if they aren't being fed properly by Mum). And since we have top quality baby bird hand-rearing formula the chicks grow up healthy as they can possibly be, and as they grow it's easier to teach them to step-up, to get used to harnesses, vacuum cleaners, children etc. I've found that our hand-raised birds tend to be cheekier than the aviary birds.

There are so many tiny things that can cause a chick to die in hand-raising... wrong temperatures of the incubator/formula.....mis-handling...so much! :S

To those of you that breed and raise babies -

Beths thread with the adorable baby tiels, got me wondering... Out of curiosity because I don't breed and don't know these things : when do you start hand feeding a baby? And how do you do it? Do you remove the babies from mommy? If so, how do the mommies take it? What are the benefits of hand feeding other than taming the baby? Do you then take over the responsibility of weaning the baby onto solids/pellets too? Also, I've seen several references to 'bad handfeeding' that can hurt the baby - can you tell me more about this? Thanks! Looking forward to learning more about this! I have no intention of breeding but I am very interested in what happens to the babies before they are sold

 

[MomtoPercy]

Also to add to what Beth is saying about using lubricant. You can hold them over some steam to help with passing the egg as well.

OMG, really? Shame, the poor birdy! Tell me, is one able to tell that the female is having difficulty passing the egg soon enough to help her? Beth said this can be fatal? Why does this happen, do you know?

You breeders are a brave bunch!

 

[MomtoPercy]

There are so many tiny things that can cause a chick to die in hand-raising... wrong temperatures of the incubator/formula.....mis-handling...so much! :S

Yeah, so I see! That's why I say you breeders are very brave! I've learned so many interesting things in this thread

Thanks everyone!