I'm Teaching a young man...

[Niteldy]

I am currently teaching a young man the "How Tos" of cockatiel baby care. I told him he needed to join this site and I hope he does.
His name is Ethon, hes smart and catches on fast! Today he got to feed a 4 week old chick. He will be breeding his own tiels soon.
So a BIG WELCOME to Ethon. !!_ meet all my tiels and the ones I have in the intensive care for babies!! + 13 in my care!!!

 

[DonnaBudgie]

Welcome! Baby birds are so adorable, fun, and irresistible!
However, especially for the inexperienced, feeding baby birds isn't easy and a lot of chicks die from mistakes in hand feeding. I've hand fed several budgies from hatching and the most important advice I always give is to feed with a spoon not a syringe. With a syringe it's too easy to fill the baby's mouth too quickly, causing the baby to aspirate the formula and die within a day or two. I hope Ethan takes my advice.

 

[Vampiric_Conure]

I'm such a sucker for baby tiels. They are so gosh darn freaking CUTE! And if Ethon is reading this, Hail and welcome!

 

[bug_n_flock]

Welcome! Yes, like Donna said it is so so easy for a mistake to happen. My advice? Slow and steady. Do not rush, do not let yourself get frustrated. Which can be harder than you think! Just because they're cute don't mean they can't frustrate you!! It's great that you've got someone knowledgeable to show you how in person and help you like that, how wonderful

 

[DonnaBudgie]

Never try to get a baby to eat more than he wants. Never fill his mouth. Let him fill his mouth. When I feed babies I say to them over and over "You're such a good baby!" "Swallow swallow!" And I watch the formula go down the throat into the crop as he swallows. Only then do I offer him more. When he's done he'll stop and fall asleep with his stuffies (stuffed animals).

 

[bug_n_flock]

Under feeding isn't great, but it's safer than over feeding. 100%. If it takes you 4x as long to feed the baby alone as it takes you to do with your mentor there, fine. No rush. All good.

 

[DonnaBudgie]

Just watch the crop. It will fill nice and round but not hard when he's had enough. If you see air bubbles in the crop, don't worry unless half to the entire crop is full of air. I find that if I feed him with his head up propped between my thumb and forefinger his won't swallow as much air as if he had to swallow lying down. If his crop has too much air an avian vet can carefully, with his head pointed up, gently express it (burp him). The air usually gets burped up on its own. I've seen air in the top of the crop many times and it's never caused a problem and I've never had to do anything about it.

The human nerves when you first start feeding a baby especially a newborn are pretty intense but once you get more comfortable doing it it's not bad.