Warning to inexperienced hand feeders

[Birdman666]

BABY BIRDS ARE FRAGILE THINGS!

THERE IS A LOT TO KNOW WHEN HAND FEEDING A BABY, AND YOU DON'T KNOW WHAT YOU DON'T KNOW UNTIL YOU JUST KILLED OR MAIMED YOUR BABY...

Please, if you are not experienced - Don't do this on your own! Don't try and learn it over the internet. Find someone who can teach you hands-on, and show you how to do it correctly.

The list of what could go wrong, includes: Crop burns, refusal to eat/spitting up because it's too cold, aspiration pneumonia, crop perforations, slow crops, sour crops, crop infections, overfilled crops leading to death, Filling the crop while baby is pausing to breathe, leading to death, not feeding enough causing malnutrition/stunted growth...

And that's just off the top of my head!

 

[JerseyWendy]

Thanks for the reminder, Mark, I'm pretty sure this sticky explains most of the dangers involved: http://www.parrotforums.com/breeding-raising-parrots/19049-hazards-buying-unweaned-baby-2.html

 

[Birdman666]

I missed the sticky... sorry.

It was on my mind from that other post...

 

[SilverSage]

Yeast in the crop, bacterial infections because you thought you got the equipment clean but didn't, skin infections and other issues because the baby doesn't want to let you clean his face and you can't figure out how, and on and on and on, but let's also add all the things that can permenantly damage the baby's mental capacity, emotional stability, and over all personality because you don't teach them all the things their parents would in the right order, or because you ar tired of the formula all over your walls and decide to clip wings before the bird has had at least a month of flying every day, or because the baby "wanted to wean" so you let hi wean; EARLY, and now his confidence is permenantly stunted and his new home can't get him to eat anything but the food you weaned him onto.