Well, I had a dilemma about what to do with my parent raised cockatiels today. They are four weeks old, and their mother laid a new egg. That's pretty normal, but this mother has already sat on 3 rounds of eggs. (The middle round didn't hatch because the first round chicks stayed in the box too long and kicked those eggs around.) So the parents have only raised 4 chicks on their own, but they have been in their nesting box for too many months in a row. Getting a new egg is the sign that it's time to take the nest box away. That normally wouldn't be a problem, except that this youngest chick is way behind in its development, so it is too immature to leave the box. I decided to take it to the brooder (which is empty now) and hand raise it until it catches up to its siblings. |
Now my actual dilemma is, should I leave the other chick with the parents in the cage with no nest box, or should I put her in the brooder with her little brother? She's way too big to need a brooder. She's fully feathered and old enough to live in a cage, but she isn't weaned yet, so she either needs her parents to keep feeding her, or me to start hand feeding her. Plus, I felt sorry for the smaller baby being all by himself in the brooder. So I decided to put her in there with him and hand feed her until she learns to eat seeds and food by herself. I'm hoping this will tame her, so that she makes a better pet than just being parent raised. (It will give her a head start on taming, at least.)
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And now we come to StEve and Rose's chicks. |
Next up are Clover and Splat's chicks. It's a little confusing having two pairs with the same initials. When that happens, I usually use the first two letters of the father's name, followed by the mother's initials. This is Clover and Splat's third round of chicks, so they have been getting the CS code all along. Chipper and Saffron's code will have to be ChS.
And these last three are from Neon and Sugars. I only put the three that will be for sale. There are three others that I will be keeping, whose photos I have not posted. Those are for my lacewing plans, and I will eventually post their photos over on my planned breedings page. |
In each group, you can see how the youngest chicks have less feathering and color than the older chicks. That gives some idea of the stages they go through. |