Two conure babies dead

Deisyg21

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Hello, My conures had babies and this was not intended. i have never breed birds before. Please no rude comments, this is not a good moment for me. Advise on how to prevent them to breed again? Advise on what did I do wrong? Or what could of have happened?

I am so devastated. Only three out of the four eggs hatched. And two babies died already. On Saturday died one (9 days old) and I don’t even know why. When I took him out he had an empty crop. I though he was ill, and I left the other two with the parents. I have a camera and today Sunday i kept checking all day they were being fed, I had formula in case I needed to feed them (I had feed babies before but they were 4 weeks old; these were babies i bought for me) My conures look like good parents because they kept cleaning them and feeding them. I saw through the camera they were feeding them around 9:30 pm and cleaning them. But at 11:30 pm I checked again and one parrot was dead (12 days old) with an almost empty crop. So now I only have one baby left (15 days old) and I am so scared. At 11:30 they were feeding the other bird and I heard the screams; thats when I checked my camera. I took him out and feed him formula and put him back with the parents. The parents cleaned him and it seems they still want him. What do you think happened? What should I do? I don't want this bird to die. Should I take him out? Weird is that I saw the parents to feed them through the camera, I did not check on person because I did not want to disturb them. I read that if you disturb them too much they can kill the babies, and they became protective and aggressive.
Another note: I have paper bedding i bought from walmart. What did I do wrong?
 

Laurasea

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I don’t have experience breeding. But I know that it’s a learning curve fir first time birds, not all chicks survive, often the first clutch doesn’t survive....

I think pulling the chick and checking the crop and supplement feeding sounds good. But I do not have experience with this.
 

noodles123

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I'm sorry. Breeding is very complicated. It stresses me out because there are so many risks of things like this. I am sorry you are going through this.

If you want to prevent future breeding, the only sure-fire way is to separate them/prevent access to breeding, but this will likely stress them out (it's a call you will have to make after weighing all the details etc).

You can slightly discourage it by removing access to any shadowy spaces/snuggle huts/cozy tents/nest boxes, etc within the cage.

If they lay another clutch of eggs, you can boil them right away (marking each boiled one with a pen dot and returning it to the cage--this way you can tell boiled from unboiled if more show up). You don't ever just want to take the eggs away until the mom loses interest. This prevents further incubation without triggering her to repeat the cycle (as she would be inclined if they were removed before she lost interest on her own).

You do want to try to prevent egg-laying as much as possible, as it can take a toll on the female if it happens a lot or if nutrition does support the proper passing of the egg and it gets stuck (egg binding)
 
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Deisyg21

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I don’t have experience breeding. But I know that it’s a learning curve fir first time birds, not all chicks survive, often the first clutch doesn’t survive....

I think pulling the chick and checking the crop and supplement feeding sounds good. But I do not have experience with this.


Than you :) Why do this usually happens? I saw parents taking care of them and the second bird was fed two hours before and he still had an empty crop. :/
 
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Deisyg21

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Hello Noodles are you a breeder? What do you recommend? Should I pull the baby out already? Parents seems like they care about their babies so I dont know what happened. The alive baby I started feeding him last night and put him back with parents. i haven't seen them feeding him, I guess they know he has been fed already. But they have been cleaning hin and giving him warmth. What did you think happened? How did the second bird had an empty crop by 11:30 if I saw parents feed him 2 hours before? Maybe they did not feed enough?
 

Laurasea

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Fist time parents May not feed often enough or enough st each feeding, or keep them warm enoug, sometimes they also can kill or absndon the chicks,
Make sure the adults are getting an extra foood and a good diet if pelkets, seeds, veggies, fruit, fresh scrambled or boiled eggs. Nuts , legume, sprouts lots of nutritious fiid
 

noodles123

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Hello Noodles are you a breeder? What do you recommend? Should I pull the baby out already? Parents seems like they care about their babies so I dont know what happened. The alive baby I started feeding him last night and put him back with parents. i haven't seen them feeding him, I guess they know he has been fed already. But they have been cleaning hin and giving him warmth. What did you think happened? How did the second bird had an empty crop by 11:30 if I saw parents feed him 2 hours before? Maybe they did not feed enough?

Hello Noodles are you a breeder? What do you recommend? Should I pull the baby out already? Parents seems like they care about their babies so I dont know what happened. The alive baby I started feeding him last night and put him back with parents. i haven't seen them feeding him, I guess they know he has been fed already. But they have been cleaning hin and giving him warmth. What did you think happened? How did the second bird had an empty crop by 11:30 if I saw parents feed him 2 hours before? Maybe they did not feed enough?

I'm not a breeder-- I have some limited past experience with hand-feeding etc, but it's been a long time and I am not an expert on it by any means! There are many members with a lot more experience who hopefully will chime in. I wouldn't be comfortable doing it myself these days, if that makes sense...

I know that with hand-feeding, temperature, sterilization of all equipment etc are very very important. Are you hand-feeding the other as well?
Was this the first time you tried to hand-feed him? It could have been so many things...I mean, if they really weren't feeding him, that is likely your answer (birds will sometimes abandon a chick and put all of their effort into another). It's possible that something went wrong during hand-feeding, but like you said, they didn't appear to be feeding him...He could have been sick too...and first-time "parronts" often are not great at their jobs.
Here is a site that lists some good details on feeding..he could have aspirated food, but I keep going back to the fact that you felt like he wasn't getting fed.

https://hari.ca/hari/research-facil...cine-pediatrics-housing-feeding-baby-parrots/ <-- some possible issues with hand-feeding are discussed at the end

https://theparrotuniversity.com/arthandfeeding2 <- this link really emphasizes the importance of temperature and cross contamination etc

http://www.parrotforums.com/breeding-raising-parrots/74363-so-you-bought-unweaned-baby.html <-- I know you didn't buy him (lots of people do, but the information overlaps some). The language in the post is strong because many people CHOOSE to buy unweaned babies, thinking it will cause them to have a better bond. The language is passionate, but not directed at you.

Were there any signs of injury? You said you heard a scream- was it from the baby? Other things could cause a scream other than injury, but I am just curious....

If you can weigh the chicks without upsetting the parents, that is often recommended as well...but like you said, you don't want to disturb them too much.

Does the other chick appear to be eating well?
Any signs of aggression from the male bird (father)?
Was he pooping?

Did he have an odd/sour smell? If he had sour crop or crop stasis, it's unlikely his crop would appear as empty as you described, but I am just throwing stuff out there. Generally, crop stasis leads to a crop staying full for longer than normal periods of time.

They generally need temperatures of 85 to 90 F ( may vary, so double check with an avian vet) because unfeathered birds cannot regulate body temperature...How long was he out and was he staying warm with the parents? The parents can keep them warm but temperature is important.

NOTE: if you ever decide to use a heat-lamp of anything, you have to be really cautious, as they can cause burns and because many are coated with toxic chemicals that off-gas and can kill birds...Teflon/ptfe/pfoa/pfcs are common coatings on space heaters and heat lamps not specifically designed for birds.

It's hard to know what caused this, but at face-value, I have a feeling it relates to the parents...Just a guess, but I hope this helped a little! Wish I could give you a better answer.
 
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Scott

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My deep condolences for your loss of two chicks. I hope the third survives, so many unknowns. It is possible the parents were overwhelmed with three to feed, they may have sensed a health issue, or simply not interested. The decision to remove at such early stage obligates you to round the clock feeding until they are considerably older.

The links provided by "noodles123" are invaluable, might also want to search for nearby breeders to assist.

Do they have a nest-box? If so, removal once this process is complete is best way to avoid future unwanted breeding.

Good luck, please keep us updated!
 
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Deisyg21

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Ok I think I did not explain myself well. I never hand feed the two babies that died. First baby I found him dead with an empty crop. There were three babies. I didn’t separate the other two babies from parents because I saw through a camera parents being good with them and I thought to myself the little one was sick. The next day, I kept looking almost all day through the camera to make sure parents were feeding the babies. And they were, they were also cleaning them, they looked like the best parents ever. Last time I saw them feeding the two babies left was around 9:30 pm and they looked fine. At 11:30 pm, i heard one of the birds because they were feeding him and thats when i check through the camera and discovered one was dead already with almost an empty crop. I took the only baby left and hand feed him since yesterday at 12:00 pm. I have been hand feeding him and returning it to the parents. The parents still clean him and give him warmth but im planning to remove him definitely from the nest. For me is weird because i saw the parents feeding them and taking care of them. Maybe my mistake was not to check on person that they were actually being fed, on camera it looked like they were giving them food through their mouth they even made that head movement.
 

noodles123

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Read over those links and good luck to you! Please do keep us posted. I know you kind of ended up in over your head without meaning to get there and I respect your attempts to research and make the best of it!!!
 

itzjbean

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Very sorry to hear about this. I breed cockatiels, maybe I can offer some help.

Can you tell me about the parent birds? How old are they, are they related, what do you feed them? Have they ever had chick before? Are they tame, able to be handled? When did you buy them? Did you buy them with an intention to breed, or just keep as pets? Do you interact with the parents before this happened, as pets? When was the parent's last vet check? When did you set up a nestbox for them?

Failure to raise chicks to weaning can be caused by MANY things. The parents could be related which would make genetically inept chicks, they could be too young to have chicks successfully, they could've been hand fed themselves (most handfed birds do not make great parent birds), they may have underlying diseases or illness, insufficient nutrients in the diet, poor genetics of parents overall leads to poor quality chicks, the parents could've been inexperienced in raising chicks and can and will let them starve, they could just be bad at being parents in general, which happens very frequently in the parrot world too.

Lot of people think breeding is so easy, just let mom and dad birds rasie their chicks perfectly to weaning, but as you have witnessed it does not happen like that! It could be several factors that contributed to this, or a combination of a few things I mentioned. A nice, calm quiet place to raise chicks is ideal, away from the hustle and bustle of the noise of a household. No other animals nearby is also ideal, to keep stress levels down for the parents.

The best thing to be able to do as a breeder is know when to recognize a problem and be able to pull a baby should it need your help (if it's starving, being neglected or mutilated by parents) and begin hand-feeding a specific temperature and consistency of formula to the baby who will thrive or perish based on your experience and knowledge. The most common problems breeders have is not knowing how to step in and pull babies to keep them safe and warm and fed when they really need it. They are so fragile, that you don't want to just jump into it thinking it will go perfectly.

I suggest pulling the remaining chick if you want it to live and have the most success. Do you have a brooder ready, and formula? Hoping the parents will care for it is slim-to none hope based on their success so far. In the future, simply removing the nestbox / all eggs laid and throwing them away will keep you from having babies, plain and simple.

As a breeder, I once lost a hen who died on the eggs. I had to take over ALL care of the eggs and luckily had my warm brooder all ready! It take dedication and hard work to breed a successful clutch especially if you have 2 bad parent birds who refuse to care for their chicks.
 
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Noahs_Birds

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If this is their first time, it is obviously due to inexperience from the parents behalf.

Empty crops is the main point, if the parents were feeding them no matter what food was on offer they would have some in their crops.

All you can hope is for them to learn from their mistake, and next time bring them into a really good breeding condition so they can breed successfully
 
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Deisyg21

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Ok. Female is a pineapple. She is almost three years old, I bought her and hand feed her when she was 4 weeks old. She is semi-tame. She learned to eat really fast, she weaned at 6 weeks old. Maybe thats why she is not fully tame. I used to grab her a little because she doesn’t like it, she didn’t bite before this. I bought her as a pet, not for breeding.

Male is a yellowsided normal greencheeck. I bought him when he was one year old or thats what they told me. I dont really know if thats true since I bought him at a swapmeet. I have had him since 2014. So he is at least 7 years. He was my first conure. He is scared of people since day one. But he never bite me before. Sometimes he would come to eat out of my food. They are not related at all. He was bought as a pet too, but i didnt know much about birds back then.

Yes I interacted with both of them, to be honest they are free cage. They go to eat on top of their cage and then hang out up in the curtains. I have four birds, if they see me eat they will flight to me. I am almost home 24/7. Also, they flight to me to take them to sleep, they sleep in a cartoon box with a blanket (no softener) and a bird heater.

All of the sudden the female started laying eggs. And two of my males started to fight to death (the one that is at least 7 years old and another one. Thats when I separated two and two. I have Three males and one female. The breeding pair became aggressive towards me and everytime I tried to put food they want to bite me, especially the female. vet check was on November for all of them.

I have them in a room by themselves. No other pets, or humans. I just put food for them. When they started laying eggs I purchased zupreem avian breeding formula (they are pellets). I also give them seeds, kaytee fortidiet pro healthy egg cite, mineral grit, and vitamins in their water. I also have a mineral block and a calcium perch in the cage. Fruits: apple. And to be honest, no vegetables at all.

Yes I have read a lot when I used to feed the female pineapple. I know about the right temperature, burn crop, sour crop. And all the problems that can arise. The only thing im not sure about is how many cc’s, i have been giving him 7 cc’s i don't want to overextend the crop and cause the food to go back to the nose/mouth. I have formula and also probiotics to add to the formula and aid with digestion. I dont have a Brooder but i bought a plastic aquarium, heating pad and thermometer. If you can also help me with temperature, he was born on July 25th. I read it was around 90, but to look for signs such as shaking or panting. One thing I notice is he is almost always panting, even when the parents are not in the box, and there is no heater in there. Is not even hot for me, maybe around 80-85 max. Is that normal? Another thing is they still have an egg, last egg hatched on July 31. I don’t think it will hatch anymore, should I remove it?
 
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Deisyg21

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I replied to you


Very sorry to hear about this. I breed cockatiels, maybe I can offer some help.

Can you tell me about the parent birds? How old are they, are they related, what do you feed them? Have they ever had chick before? Are they tame, able to be handled? When did you buy them? Did you buy them with an intention to breed, or just keep as pets? Do you interact with the parents before this happened, as pets? When was the parent's last vet check? When did you set up a nestbox for them?

Failure to raise chicks to weaning can be caused by MANY things. The parents could be related which would make genetically inept chicks, they could be too young to have chicks successfully, they could've been hand fed themselves (most handfed birds do not make great parent birds), they may have underlying diseases or illness, insufficient nutrients in the diet, poor genetics of parents overall leads to poor quality chicks, the parents could've been inexperienced in raising chicks and can and will let them starve, they could just be bad at being parents in general, which happens very frequently in the parrot world too.

Lot of people think breeding is so easy, just let mom and dad birds rasie their chicks perfectly to weaning, but as you have witnessed it does not happen like that! It could be several factors that contributed to this, or a combination of a few things I mentioned. A nice, calm quiet place to raise chicks is ideal, away from the hustle and bustle of the noise of a household. No other animals nearby is also ideal, to keep stress levels down for the parents.

The best thing to be able to do as a breeder is know when to recognize a problem and be able to pull a baby should it need your help (if it's starving, being neglected or mutilated by parents) and begin hand-feeding a specific temperature and consistency of formula to the baby who will thrive or perish based on your experience and knowledge. The most common problems breeders have is not knowing how to step in and pull babies to keep them safe and warm and fed when they really need it. They are so fragile, that you don't want to just jump into it thinking it will go perfectly.

I suggest pulling the remaining chick if you want it to live and have the most success. Do you have a brooder ready, and formula? Hoping the parents will care for it is slim-to none hope based on their success so far. In the future, simply removing the nestbox / all eggs laid and throwing them away will keep you from having babies, plain and simple.

As a breeder, I once lost a hen who died on the eggs. I had to take over ALL care of the eggs and luckily had my warm brooder all ready! It take dedication and hard work to breed a successful clutch especially if you have 2 bad parent birds who refuse to care for their chicks.
 
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Deisyg21

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Hello, thank you for the links they were very helpful. But I have a question. It is being so hard to feed the baby, he gives me a feeding response just at the beginning and the he asks for a break and I stop. He does this twice and after that it is being really hard to feed him. He doesnt do the feeding response and doesnt want to eat. Food is warm, I usually put three syringes in an aluminum cup with water at a temperature of 106-109. And I switched them when I think the one I have on hand is cold. I keep checking temperature and adding hot/cold water if necessary to maintain that temperature. Before I start giving it to him I put a little bit on my hand to check temperature as well. It is warm. I also rub these pads on the side of the beak and nothing. I tried to make him eat at a very slow pace when I received no feeding response (and with no feeding response im scared to aspirate him) so it takes me about 40 minutes to feed him. When i receive the feeding response at the beginning I go at a faster pace but it is also slow since i dont want to aspirate him and look for signs that he needs a break. I weighted him yesterday empty crop and he was 50. Todays empty crop was 53.
I give him formula based on his weight (not cc). Around 57 grams he didn’t want to eat anymore. I ended up with 61 grams of weight. How does that sound? Is that too little food. I have been noticing he empties do fast. By 2 1/2-3 hours. I put him back with parents and have a thermometer in the box, I try too keep the temperature at 90. Food preparation based on Kaytee is one scoop of formula and and 1/3-2 scoops of water. To be honest I put 2 1/2 of electrolytes. I have noticed he eats better a little bit more liquid. At night I put 2 scoops of electrolytes since i dont want him to empty that fast and I checked and it was the same he emptied around 2 1/2 hours. Also, I add probiotics. Maybe I am adding too much? Could this be the reason? Should I been adding that or is not recommended? Hopefully someone can help me.

Im feeding 4-5 times a day. Also when is almost time for the next feeding I have notice parents feeding him. But when I check he has nothing on his crop. What could be the reason for this? Why does it look like they are feeding him? Beak to beak and that feeding motion but still he has no food.



Hello Noodles are you a breeder? What do you recommend? Should I pull the baby out already? Parents seems like they care about their babies so I dont know what happened. The alive baby I started feeding him last night and put him back with parents. i haven't seen them feeding him, I guess they know he has been fed already. But they have been cleaning hin and giving him warmth. What did you think happened? How did the second bird had an empty crop by 11:30 if I saw parents feed him 2 hours before? Maybe they did not feed enough?

Hello Noodles are you a breeder? What do you recommend? Should I pull the baby out already? Parents seems like they care about their babies so I dont know what happened. The alive baby I started feeding him last night and put him back with parents. i haven't seen them feeding him, I guess they know he has been fed already. But they have been cleaning hin and giving him warmth. What did you think happened? How did the second bird had an empty crop by 11:30 if I saw parents feed him 2 hours before? Maybe they did not feed enough?

I'm not a breeder-- I have some limited past experience with hand-feeding etc, but it's been a long time and I am not an expert on it by any means! There are many members with a lot more experience who hopefully will chime in. I wouldn't be comfortable doing it myself these days, if that makes sense...

I know that with hand-feeding, temperature, sterilization of all equipment etc are very very important. Are you hand-feeding the other as well?
Was this the first time you tried to hand-feed him? It could have been so many things...I mean, if they really weren't feeding him, that is likely your answer (birds will sometimes abandon a chick and put all of their effort into another). It's possible that something went wrong during hand-feeding, but like you said, they didn't appear to be feeding him...He could have been sick too...and first-time "parronts" often are not great at their jobs.
Here is a site that lists some good details on feeding..he could have aspirated food, but I keep going back to the fact that you felt like he wasn't getting fed.

https://hari.ca/hari/research-facil...cine-pediatrics-housing-feeding-baby-parrots/ <-- some possible issues with hand-feeding are discussed at the end

https://theparrotuniversity.com/arthandfeeding2 <- this link really emphasizes the importance of temperature and cross contamination etc

http://www.parrotforums.com/breeding-raising-parrots/74363-so-you-bought-unweaned-baby.html <-- I know you didn't buy him (lots of people do, but the information overlaps some). The language in the post is strong because many people CHOOSE to buy unweaned babies, thinking it will cause them to have a better bond. The language is passionate, but not directed at you.

Were there any signs of injury? You said you heard a scream- was it from the baby? Other things could cause a scream other than injury, but I am just curious....

If you can weigh the chicks without upsetting the parents, that is often recommended as well...but like you said, you don't want to disturb them too much.

Does the other chick appear to be eating well?
Any signs of aggression from the male bird (father)?
Was he pooping?

Did he have an odd/sour smell? If he had sour crop or crop stasis, it's unlikely his crop would appear as empty as you described, but I am just throwing stuff out there. Generally, crop stasis leads to a crop staying full for longer than normal periods of time.

They generally need temperatures of 85 to 90 F ( may vary, so double check with an avian vet) because unfeathered birds cannot regulate body temperature...How long was he out and was he staying warm with the parents? The parents can keep them warm but temperature is important.

NOTE: if you ever decide to use a heat-lamp of anything, you have to be really cautious, as they can cause burns and because many are coated with toxic chemicals that off-gas and can kill birds...Teflon/ptfe/pfoa/pfcs are common coatings on space heaters and heat lamps not specifically designed for birds.

It's hard to know what caused this, but at face-value, I have a feeling it relates to the parents...Just a guess, but I hope this helped a little! Wish I could give you a better answer.
 

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