Budgie clutch hand feeding

Hello I have a question and wonder if you can help me with . My budgie Lucy has hatched five babies and I want to start hand feeding at three weeks old but when the oldest is three weeks old the youngest will be less than two weeks old . Question I have is would it be OK to take out the two older ones since they are only a day apart and then a week later take out the remaining three or should I just take them all at the same time when the oldest is three weeks old . I have experience with hand feeding I have just never had one of my birds hatch eggs and had to remove them from the nest box For hand feeding.

Honestly I'd just let the parents feed them. It's healthier for the babies.

If you must hand feed them, then definitely take them out at separate times. This helps to relieve pressure when feeding all the chicks and gives the younger ones a little more time with the parents before being pulled for hand feeding.

Do keep an eye on them though as the loss of chicks could result in stress and the parents may choose to not feed the youngest ones and you may need to pull them anyway.

gracebowen said:

Honestly I'd just let the parents feed them. It's healthier for the babies.

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Yes I agree with Grace! Why would you want to hand feed? Parents do a great job and most parent raised budgies are quite easy to tame.

cheers

Avin

You absolutely MUST pull the chicks from the nest box at different times, never, ever pull chicks younger than 2 weeks old, as they get much needed crop milk full of antibodies from their mother in the first 2 weeks. SO IF YOU'RE PULLING THEM AT 3 WEEKS OLD, THEN YOU NEED TO MAKE A CHART FOR EACH CHICK'S AGE, AND PULL EACH CHICK WHEN THEY ARE 3 WEEKS OLD AND NOT ANY SOONER. If you're doing it properly you should end up with chicks of all different ages that you are hand feeding, and that are all weaning at different times as well.

Do you have a brooder? All babies need artificial heat until they develop all of their down, or at least until they are 4-5 weeks old. You also need to mix up their formula differently based on their ages, you can't just feed all the chicks of different ages the same consistency of formula, as the younger the baby, the thinner the formula needs to be. Each baby needs to be treated appropriately according to their age, not all the same at once, that will surely end in dead babies.

So, pull each chick and put them in the brooder when each of them hits 3 weeks old, leaving the younger babies in the nest box with the parents until they are 3 weeks. And YOU WILL ALSO MOVE THE BABIES INTO THEIR WEANING CAGES AT DIFFERENT TIMES TOO, AS THEY WILL NOT ALL BE ABLE TO MOVE OUT OF THE BROODER AT THE SAME TIME OBVIOUSLY, NOR WILL THEY BE STARTING TO WEAN AT THE SAME TIME...everything is individual for each individual bird...

As mentioned, you don't have experience and you're best to not do this, just let the parents feed them, let them live in the next box until they are weaned, but just take them out and handle each of them every single day for as much time as you can, and this will hand-tame them while ensuring that they are appropriately fed.

To my knowledge, parrots do not produce crop milk. I know pigeons do, but I have not come across anything to indicate that parrots do as well.

That said, I do agree with leaving young chicks with the parents unless there's a specific reason to pull them at a younger age...

MonicaMc said:

To my knowledge, parrots do not produce crop milk. I know pigeons do, but I have not come across anything to indicate that parrots do as well.

That said, I do agree with leaving young chicks with the parents unless there's a specific reason to pull them at a younger age...

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I don't know what your definition of crop "milk" is, but the very thin, watery liquid that the mother feeds the babies during the first week or so after they hatch is often called "crop milk", and it contains antibodies from the mother that keeps the babies from developing infections while their immune systems develop. It's a very thin, watery liquid with random seeds that escape into it, but essentially contains no solids, and is vital to keeping the babies safe from infections for their first week or two of life.

Whenever babies are rejected and have to be hand-fed from day 1, in addition to them being so small, so easily aspirated, and having to eat every 2 hours or so, one of the main reasons they often die if being hand-fed from that young is due to them acquiring infections/illnesses due to their young and underdeveloped immune systems. It's something that we cannot duplicate with formulas, vitamins, supplements, etc. unfortunately.

Whether or not it's actually "milk" or not I really don't know, but it's often referred to as "crop milk", but as I've always heard the term used regarding parrots, it's only considered "crop milk" for the first two weeks of the baby's life, after which it becomes much thicker and contains a totally different mixture of different things...

that's actually some super interesting info there Ellen! To me it sounds like the fluid fed for the start sound like more digested food brought from the stomach as opposed to the crop so it contains all of the healthy bacteria which the parents have built up over the years to combat disease. Just spit-balling ideas here

LordTriggs said:

that's actually some super interesting info there Ellen! To me it sounds like the fluid fed for the start sound like more digested food brought from the stomach as opposed to the crop so it contains all of the healthy bacteria which the parents have built up over the years to combat disease. Just spit-balling ideas here

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I hadn't actually ever thought about that Triggs, but now that you just made me, lol, yes, that does make a lot of sense and probably is exactly what it is. Good call!