New Babies... advice welcome

Hi all

So we have a new pair of Ecky babies We are in the process of hand raising an Alex as a pet at the moment and we came across these Ecky babies. We actually felt a little sorry for them and came back with them today. I know you should never buy birds that way but I have a soft spot for all animals. We're not sure if we'll keep both of them for ourselves or just hand raise them properly and find a good home for them but any advice would be appreciated.

One is a 6 and a half week old female. The other is just 3 weeks old today and can't tell if it's male or female yet.

The breeder admitted that in his confusion with some of the other birds (ringnecks), has only been feeding them 3 times a day, so I'm guessing they're probably a little underweight. Now if you're a good breeder, I doubt you confuse these things The breeder was also a bit sick so can't have the birds too close to him etc so I doubt they've really got much handling which is not so bad for the baby but the older chick seems a little hand shy.

The feeding and handling I will improve.

However, I have a couple of questions about the Ecky's in general. We've not had them before. I don't want to do anything wrong. I will take them to our local Avian Vet but figured with all of the breeders and owners on here, you would all have some excellent advice.

- they seem a little quiet, as opposed to our Alex who is the same age as the female. He's up and walking around alot, playing with some small toys. The Ecky female is very quiet, sleeps alot, I would almost describe her as a bit lethargic. Is this typical of the breed? Or this age?

- introducing of other foods? as per my first question, she doesn't appear ready for this at all...

I'll try take some photos and upload them...

thanks in advance!

I don't have an eckie yet but I am doing alotof research and I wish you with plenty of luck. However, the person you need to contact in this forum is Pedr. He has a lot of useful info and he breeds them too!personally msghim and I'm sure he'll help.

Sorry I just read back my MSG n it's Pedro. Or MikeyTn has good info too

Pedro would be a great one to comment on this, but let me start since Pedro isn't here yet...

You can start introducing food to the female right now by giving some cut up fresh fruits and veggies. A breeder friend of mine use a food processor and chop them all up together and they seem to like it. I also feed mine minimal seeds containing mainly small seeds such as millets. I feed a tbsp between 2 ekkies. We also cook for them, sweet potatoes, chicken breast meat, egg with shells, lintels, etc. They also love bread.....

Do you know what feeding method the breeder use to feed the ekkies?

I don't breed ekkies, but I did buy a baby, who I was told was 8 weeks old... I had him in a small cage with perches and food dishes at floor level...

Babies basically eat and sleep...

Introduce soft foods, but keep up with the hand feeding until they refuse it...

Would love to see pictures...

Hello Chor,

It doesn't hurt (in addition to the formula) to introduce the 6 week old to some soft foods like mashed veggies, small bits of fruit, human foods that are also healthy for birds and some etcs. ... Just change often so no spoilage occurs.

The 3 week old of course should just stay on formula, fed often enough per day for good growth = about 5 times a day filling the crop with the proper amount of formula for its age.

Ekkies, in my experience, often do seem somewhat lethargic but it could also be due to other reasons, hopefully none of the other reasons are health related.

.