parent raised bird vs. handfed

cdog

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Hi my gcc's have two babies in the nest and I have the other two in the brooder being handfed. I am thinking about letting them raise the two they have. My question is do parent raised birds make good companion/pet. And I know they will need work but how much work will they need. I would want to have the babies still be as fun and playful and still like being with me if they were to be parent raised. I want to know this not because I cant do the work to hand feed, but to give the parents a go at raising their own babies.

If anyone has a parent raised bird please feel free to share your experiences, thanks.
 

roxynoodle

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I've only had parent raised budgies and it took quite a bit of time to tame them. If you hope to keep or sell these babies as pets, I would hand feed them. If you think they will sell as breeders I've seen many breeders on here say parent raised birds are better parents to their babies.

Now, my amazon was apparently wild caught. I do not know at what age so I don't know if he had some hand feeding or if he was parent raised and tamed later. He sure seems like a hand raised bird, but he is also about 29 years old, so I don't know how long someone spent taming him.
 
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cdog

cdog

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Sully-2 year old cinnamon and Bella-3 year old normal
breeding pair of gcc, Scooter & BeeBee-Sully and Bella's normal son's, Rosey- Bella and Sully's cinnamon daughter, Ella & Sunny-American budgies
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Well I plan on keeping one and my dad kind of wants one too, but I still want to know if the pare.t raised ones would be good pets because I don't know if I want one of the ones I'm hand feeding or not.
 

IcyWolf

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I think parent raised birds can be good pets, but it takes a lot more work, just like adopting an older bird that hasn't had much socialization. With that being said, I think unless you know people that would want them as breeders, you would be giving them a much better start in life if you hand raised them. Unfortunately, there are all too many people with good intentions that end up getting discouraged trying to tame a less than social bird and I would hate to see one of your little guys end up in rescue situations.

The only real experience I have to go on with this is the cockatiels that we used to get in at the pet stores I worked at. We would get hand fed and parent raised birds, and the hand reared ones were always so lovey and sweet, most of the parent raised ones were terrified of people and would bite pretty hard if given the opportunity. Now, I have no idea if these birds got any kind of human interaction while they were being parent raised(probably not) and I suppose that could make a huge difference. Hopefully someone will be able to give you some insight into that one.
 

HalfInsane

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While I don't have any actual breeding experience, I've heard parent raised chicks who have frequent interaction with people while young make fabulous pets. They're just as tame around people while also benefiting both physically and psychologically from being raised by their parents (not try to say handfed babies are total messes or anything, my Senegal is hand raised, but you'll never out do nature).

My old lovebird was parent raise with NO human interaction. It did take longer to earn her trust, but once I did she was every bit the friendly, social, people-loving bird any hand-raised chick can be.
 
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cdog

cdog

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Sully-2 year old cinnamon and Bella-3 year old normal
breeding pair of gcc, Scooter & BeeBee-Sully and Bella's normal son's, Rosey- Bella and Sully's cinnamon daughter, Ella & Sunny-American budgies
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Well I thought if when they start to fledge they would out of the box and in the open cage, so I was going to just talk, sit with them feed them and soon they would be friendly. Would this work just as well as handfeeding? I heard parent raised birds are healthier and have less problems like feather pluckng, is this true?
 

Pedro

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Cdog, just as HalfInsane said. It's lots of human contact. The best way around it is to go to the nest box daily & spend some time with the chicks, don't wait until they fledge you would just stress them out. Pick them up lots of cuddles & handling. I don't know how tame your breeding pair are or if they have tolorated nest inspections. My GC don't worry to much when i check things. So you pair shouldn't worry either. That's how i can leave the chicks with the parents until they are about 5 weeks old, bubs are so used to me picking them up when i bring them in for H/R they take to the spoon the first feed.
 
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cdog

cdog

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breeding pair of gcc, Scooter & BeeBee-Sully and Bella's normal son's, Rosey- Bella and Sully's cinnamon daughter, Ella & Sunny-American budgies
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FORGET EVERYTHING I ASKED, I heard two chirps yesterday by the babies but only one today, I don't usually open the lid to the box but decided to an hour ago, I only found one baby. WHAT DO I DO, should I take the other one out now or wait to see if they take care of it?!
PLEASE HELP!!!
 

Pedro

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If your already rearing 2 babies I would take that little one also. Maybe they stopped feeding them. Check through the nesting material the parents would have buried it.
 

lene1949

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I agree with Pedro...

Do you know what happened to the second baby?
 

MikeyTN

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What I'm about to say is just for breeding purposes, a parent raised chick makes a better parent then a hand raised chick. Through the different pairs I've had in the past from breeding, only the parent raised ones raise excellent babies while the handfed one can have issues like egg pecking, eating the eggs, pecking at the chicks, or even killing them. A parent raised chick can be just as good of a pet like it was mentioned above IF you play with them on a daily basis. But it takes a lot of time and patience. Like Pedro mentioned, IF they're not caring for them, might as well just remove the chicks and rear them yourself. This happens often....It's something you have to be prepared for if your breeding.
 
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cdog

cdog

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Sully-2 year old cinnamon and Bella-3 year old normal
breeding pair of gcc, Scooter & BeeBee-Sully and Bella's normal son's, Rosey- Bella and Sully's cinnamon daughter, Ella & Sunny-American budgies
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I do not know what happened to the baby, I just looked last night and it wasn't there.
 
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cdog

cdog

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Sully-2 year old cinnamon and Bella-3 year old normal
breeding pair of gcc, Scooter & BeeBee-Sully and Bella's normal son's, Rosey- Bella and Sully's cinnamon daughter, Ella & Sunny-American budgies
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Well they started to eat the fifth baby after it died I think, it was missing wings and feet, so that is probably what happened. But how could they eat a baby older than a week old over night, and why would it die after living for over a week.
 

MikeyTN

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Well they started to eat the fifth baby after it died I think, it was missing wings and feet, so that is probably what happened. But how could they eat a baby older than a week old over night, and why would it die after living for over a week.

Things happen why they die, they might of kill the baby themselves. Or the baby had issues to begin with. One thing you need to make sure is you don't have a mouse issue cause they will kill chicks and drag them off....but in your case I would say it's the parents. In the wild they'll eat their young when they die as they need to keep the living chick healthy and to keep predators away from their nest. So cannibalism occurs....
 
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cdog

cdog

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Sully-2 year old cinnamon and Bella-3 year old normal
breeding pair of gcc, Scooter & BeeBee-Sully and Bella's normal son's, Rosey- Bella and Sully's cinnamon daughter, Ella & Sunny-American budgies
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I understand why the fifth chick would be weak but the third or fourth? Do you think I should let them raise this.last bird or should I take it?
 

MikeyTN

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Its probably best for you to take it and start the feeding process. Take the nest box down and let tge pair rest for awhile before letting them attempt it again.
 
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cdog

cdog

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Sully-2 year old cinnamon and Bella-3 year old normal
breeding pair of gcc, Scooter & BeeBee-Sully and Bella's normal son's, Rosey- Bella and Sully's cinnamon daughter, Ella & Sunny-American budgies
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Well so far it looks like they are feeding it so I think I might wait.
 

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