I want to raise my new parrot from an egg. What do I need to know?

zeusophobia

New member
Feb 11, 2020
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Dunedin Florida
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Pacific Parrotlet
I work from home full time as a website owner. I have a pacific parrotlet and I want an amazon. I also have a few friends (and literally everyone who knows my stepson) who want birds. I've decided the thing to do is to raise birds for myself, friends, and family.

There are obvious and less obvious reasons I want to do this, but I have experience raising pythons from egg, so this won't be my first rodeo. Although I realize birds vs snakes the bulls are 10x bigger and meaner.

I can't find any complete articles on what to do when you get your egg, hand feeding the chicks, so on and so fourth.

As far as I know I have to incubate the eggs, which is something I have loads of experience with. Then I have to feed them every 5 hours and the food has to be thinner the first 3 days. I guess the chicks are kept in fishtanks with a heating element??? I need latex gloves? Please correct me if I got any of this wrong.

I'm understanding that this is a big commitment including waking up at 2am to feed them.

Edit: apparently parrot eggs are a scam =( nevermind.

I also understand that unlike raising dogs and cats, raising parrots doesn't hurt anything as there's no overpopulation of abandoned parrots in the pound.

I just want to do this right and be responsible so some guidance would be nice.
 
Last edited:

SilverSage

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Sep 14, 2013
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I work from home full time as a website owner. I have a pacific parrotlet and I want an amazon. I also have a few friends (and literally everyone who knows my stepson) who want birds. I've decided the thing to do is to raise birds for myself, friends, and family.



There are obvious and less obvious reasons I want to do this, but I have experience raising pythons from egg, so this won't be my first rodeo. Although I realize birds vs snakes the bulls are 10x bigger and meaner.



I can't find any complete articles on what to do when you get your egg, hand feeding the chicks, so on and so fourth.



As far as I know I have to incubate the eggs, which is something I have loads of experience with. Then I have to feed them every 5 hours and the food has to be thinner the first 3 days. I guess the chicks are kept in fishtanks with a heating element??? I need latex gloves? Please correct me if I got any of this wrong.



I'm understanding that this is a big commitment including waking up at 2am to feed them.



I also understand that unlike raising dogs and cats, raising parrots doesn't hurt anything as there's no overpopulation of abandoned parrots in the pound.



I just want to do this right and be responsible so some guidance would be nice.



Hi.

I raise birds so I’m happy to give my thoughts.

First of all, why do you think that it is best for you to raise your own birds rather than get them from someone with experience? I’m going to try to condense this answer to only the questions you actually asked, because I could go on for hours about why I disagree with this plan.

First of all, there is no comparing birds and snakes. Reptiles vs birds are a completely different ball game. In fact it’s kind of like saying an actual rodeo isn’t your first rodeo because you are s ball players, but you’ve never hog tied a steer or ridden a bull. The needs of the babies are utterly different.


To get eggs you have to have the parents. Nobody trustworthy, and I do mean NOBODY sells parrot eggs. It is so beyond unethical that I start to shake even thinking about the kind of evil disregard for life a person would have to have to do such a terrible thing as this. Selling babies even at a few weeks old to inexperienced pet owners to finish hand feeding is itself an evil that is outlawed in some countries, I wish it were in more! Do you know how many hours many of us here have spent trying to help people save their babies that are dying in front of them because they missed something simple due to inexperience?? But I digress. Parrot eggs are too fragile to safely transport. Ethical concerns aside it just can’t be done reliably. You want eggs, you have to have parents, and you have to convince them to breed.

As for incubating, I have no experience incubating snakes so I have no idea how similar it is but parrot eggs require a lot more than chicken eggs in both equipment and intervention.

Where did you read you have to feed a new baby every 5 hours????? Try every 1 hour for the first 24 hours, then every 2 hours for the next 48 hours, every 3 hours for the rest of the first week, and so on and so forth. 5 hours for a newborn chick? They’ll die. And then temp of the formula must be exact as well.

As for “fish tanks with a heating element” yes you need a brooder that can be adjusted to the degree, better yet the 10th of a degree relatively quickly. They run anywhere from $200-$5,000. This is separate from a specialized incubator of course and babies of different ages (feathered and unfeathered) can’t be kept together.


Now let’s talk about abandonment. There are MANY abandoned parrots, but not from overpopulation. Parrots are abandoned mostly because they are mentally and emotionally damaged and unstable from people raising them who don’t meet their developmental needs, because they think it will be a fun hobby or something. They destroy the minds of these incredible creatures before they even go to their new homes turning them into biting screaming plucking self mutilating miserable basket cases that no one can stand to live with so they bounce around for sale every year or two or land in rescues for years, sometimes decades.


I applaud your desire to be responsible and I’m not telling you not to breed birds, I’m saying you haven’t even begun to scratch the surface of what you need to study before going any further. I’m going to link a list of questions you should get detailed answers to before moving further. I would link my website with a couple more relevant articles but it’s down right now unfortunately.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
 

SilverSage

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LaManuka

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Edit: apparently parrot eggs are a scam =( nevermind.

Oh thank goodness you realised this whole raising parrot chicks from eggs business is a scam! Hence why there is no information or guidance online on how to do it, as you’ve also mentioned. Even raising unweaned babies that are too young to be sold to those who are inexperienced and ill-equipped to care for them properly is fraught with danger and puts the lives of so many pet parrots at grave risk of death, as our “Bereavement” page (and others) will attest.

Obviously you’ve done some more research before jumping in and realised yourself how crooked the online sale of parrot eggs is. Silversage is absolutely right in every respect! Parrot eggs cannot be compared with reptile or even poultry eggs where the babies hatch able to run around looking for food almost immediately and are not totally reliant on their parents for every little thing. Get one of those things wrong and you’ve got a dead bird. Happily this won’t happen to you but my heart bleeds for all those poor babies out there who are unfortunate enough to be going through exactly this right now.
 

noodles123

Well-known member
Jul 11, 2018
8,145
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Umbrella Cockatoo- 15? years old..I think?
Oh please do not try this--- it is NOT best for the bird at all and it usually doesn't even work...unless you take the egg from the parents and that is a whole other issue...There is no reason to do this AT ALL, but there are about a thousand reasons not to.
Biggest reason not to--- raising a bird from a baby doesn't ensure your bond. People think it makes your relationship more solid, but that isn't the case. A baby will bond to its caretaker, but that can and does shift--- a baby will bond to anyone (99% of the time) but that bond doesn't always last forever when puberty rolls around etc--- it takes work to maintain it.
 

noodles123

Well-known member
Jul 11, 2018
8,145
472
Parrots
Umbrella Cockatoo- 15? years old..I think?
I also understand that unlike raising dogs and cats, raising parrots doesn't hurt anything as there's no overpopulation of abandoned parrots in the pound.

.


This is not true at all. Proportionally, parrots are re-homed more than any other pet. They would die in a pound, which is why you don't see them there. Rescues are filled to capacity and still get hundreds of calls a day from people looking to surrender their birds...Sometimes people just leave them behind to die when they move etc. It is really tragic and there are thousands in need of homes.

There is a HUGE population of abandoned birds, which is why people say "adopt, don't shop"
 

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