First time babies of BH pionis

Birds88 · Feb 5, 2018

Hello,
We have first time babies and our BH mom and maybe father doing good job of feeding babies so far for their first 10-12days.
We cannot keep all babies, but would like to have may be one or two feed by parents and take others for handfeading after they are 3 -4 weeks old.
Does anyone had try this way to split the babies? It is ok practice or not.

Thanks beforehand for your input :gcc:

itzjbean · Feb 5, 2018

If you're going to pull some babies, why not pull them all? Then you get to know their personalities and will be able to choose a favorite, then give the other others to loving homes when they're weaned.

SilverSage · Feb 5, 2018

Are you handling the babies that are being parent reared?

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Birds88 · Feb 5, 2018

itzjbean said:
If you're going to pull some babies, why not pull them all? Then you get to know their personalities and will be able to choose a favorite, then give the other others to loving homes when they're weaned.

----
Thanks
We want to keep one or two for future breeding , of course will have to sex test them and find a pair later, as we love those small sweet BH, but cannot keep all as our space is limited.
We thought that leaving them with parents will be better as we might not need them to be tame. Well, both parents were tame from beginning, but we do not disturb them since they had eggs.
This is our first babies and we not sure yet how to approach right in this situation.
Those whom we take for handfeeding might be sold to good home, unless my wife wants to keep all:11:

SilverSage · Feb 5, 2018

You are correct that leaving those you want to use as breeders with the parents is wise.

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Birds88 · Feb 5, 2018

SilverSage said:
Are you handling the babies that are being parent reared?

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk[/QUOTE

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No
We do not disturb the box at all, not counting one or two times opening the box to check babies condition.
We even do not use vacuum cleaner to keep less noise in the room.

-----
Thanks

SilverSage · Feb 5, 2018

Birds88 said:
SilverSage said:

Are you handling the babies that are being parent reared?

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk[/QUOTE

-------

No

We do not disturb the box at all, not counting one or two times opening the box to check babies condition.

We even do not use vacuum cleaner to keep less noise in the room.

-----

Thanks

Click to expand...

I don’t recommend that approach at all. You aren’t weighing or inspecting the babies? That’s not wise as it will be almost impossible to notice any problems before it’s too late.

In future clutches, start opening the nest box every day as soon as the box is up. I do this immediately after feeding and watering; it lets the birds know exactly when it’s going to happen. Once eggs are laid, mark them so you know which is which, and mark in the calendar when each is laid. This is important so you can know when they should hatch and be on the lookout for hatching problems.

Toward the end of the incubation you should be candling the eggs daily and monitoring the hatch so you can step in and assist if necessary. You should already have educated yourself on what causes a chick to need help hatching in the first place and how to avoid it, as well as exactly how and when to step in and help.

You should be weighing each chick daily on a gram scale. Not only is this important for health reasons, but do you really think a 3-4 week old chick
That you have NEVER TOUCHED will easily accept hand feeding?

You MUST be keeping the area clean! You say vacuum; so they are on carpet? And you aren’t cleaning it?? That is DANGEROUS not JUST to your birds’ health but to yours; have you heard of Bird Keepers Lung? This kind of thing is how you get Bird Keepers Lung and end up having to sell all your birds so you can stay alive.

If you plan to keep all these babies, what are your plans to prevent inbreeding when they all reach sexual maturity???

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itzjbean · Feb 5, 2018

I have to agree with Silversage on this one.

If you don't handle the babies they won't like human contact, they will only befearful of you. Also, some species are prolific breeders and birds do not distinguish relatedness, if a male and female are mature they will mate. How will you prevent this from happening and the siblings from having babies with possible genetic defects?

My pair are also tame -- the way their breeding cage works is its large enough to fit nest box inside it. Since the first egg was laid I peeked in the nestbox every few days to check for egg number, then once they started hatching I checked the box daily and began to handle the babies from day one. It does help the parents being tame because they trusted and allowed me to reach in and pick babies up with no aggression. The parents kept babies very well-fed so I just made sure to get the babies used to me opening the nest box, my voice, picking them up and I also took them out and let them explore on a towel on a table to get used to me and people. All weaned with parents but remained tame as I continued to take them out of the nestbox, pick them up and spent time with them.

Birds88 · Feb 5, 2018

Thanks all for an educational info.
We got those birds not as a pair and we had them for a year separate in the same room.
They slowly start getting together and we put them in one cage without any problems and set the box few month later "just in case". Soon after that we found eggs while checking the box when we pet both birds.....all this was a big surprise for us.....

We love them and will start slowly change our wrong way doing things with our PH and babies.
The cage is on vinyl floor but we still used vacuum to clean around.
We clean all around by hand now with less noise.
I have a digital scale and would scale babies.
So far parents eating/using a lot of pellets roudy bush and fruits and veggies which we add after cleaning bowls 4-5 times a day.
If we will keep one or too blood related birds we will not keep them together, when they matured . We understand that and will try to get them a different mate.

It is our first babies and will will do as much as we can to make them grow up and wean, but would need your experienced support as we are learning together with new parents as well.

Thanks again.

Birds88 · Feb 5, 2018

It was very excited moment of holding those small babies, both parents were ok or at least did not scream.
I weight them smallest one 0.26lb biggest 0.35 lb. All had big crop during our first weight session.
So the next issue is how to determine how much they should add next day and so on?

SilverSage · Feb 5, 2018

You need to get a GRAM scale; pounds is not nearly small enough. As to weight gain that’s species specific; you will need to look up that information.

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Birds88 · Mar 6, 2018

We left one baby with us and started a hand feeding 3 times 20cc of formula.
Baby is 39 days old and we a thinking about introducing a normal food as today the baby decided to fly and did it very good.
So, the question is were to start , what food and how to introduce it to a baby.

Thanks for your input:60:

itzjbean · Mar 7, 2018

Birds88 said:
We left one baby with us and started a hand feeding 3 times 20cc of formula.
Baby is 39 days old and we a thinking about introducing a normal food as today the baby decided to fly and did it very good.
So, the question is were to start , what food and how to introduce it to a baby.

Thanks for your input:60:

You can introduce all kinds of things -- chopped up fruit, veggies, birdie bread (recipes online), pellets, spray millet, cooked beans, quinoea, really anything that normal birds eat. Stick to the softer foods now and try as much variety as you can.

AVOID avocado, onion, garlic, rhubarb, chocolate, alcohol as these are toxic to birds.

Birds88 · Mar 7, 2018

Thanks a lot
Do you think that it is right time to start introducing a new food and reduce hand feeding to 2 times a day?
What time of pellets? Scenic Hand Weaning Food*? Or any other brands?
Babies parents are happy and health with Roudy bush

:04:

LordTriggs · Mar 8, 2018

I'd introduce the new food but keep the feedings. What you have the chance to do here is become another member of team "abundance wean"

just keep offering food until they decide "nah I'm done"

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