**KAZ**

I missed a really good photo Took a photo of this hen with three chicks and one of the chicks under her wing poked his head through the feathers on her wing....just as I took the photo he pulled his head back again Mark Hawke hen

they are real pretty

I have some spare breeding cages you can borrow if you like Amy

Fantastic chicks !!! And a few hens amongst them too Love the photos Splat, and the chicks are really something to be proud of. Well done !!! You certainly know your stuff :thankyou:

I have no real answers for you GB. I just want to say .............follow your instincts with this bird and you will have done the very best you can. :thankyou:

You always feel crappy when these things happen.... things that if you knew how important it was you would have done a better job :thankyou: AND it makes you a better bird keeper in the future......so lessons are learnt. As far as beak trimming goes. You will see the bottom beak begin to grow more after it leaves the nestbox ....reason is the top beak isnt keep it in trim because the top beak is going inside the bottom beak. You can trim your own as the overgrowth ( if maintained ) always shows a line of new growth so you can see where to cut. You can use very sharp scissors or nail cutters. Whatever works.......IF you feel comfortable about doing it. This will be a budgie that you will have to keep to maintain it. You cant sell it or someone else ends up with a bird that may costs them at the vets.

My nestboxes

Its too late now to do anything. What has occurred is food got stuck inside the top beak.......it rots in there building up heat and affect the growing of the beak. The bottom beak then grows at its normal rate and you end up with this issue. THIS IS PREVENTABLE !!!!!!!!!!!!!! This is part of normal nestchecking of chicks. EVERYTIME you nestcheck you open the beaks and look for stuck food........then remove it with a spare feather quill or something similar. Nestchecking is twice daily once you have chicks. If you had done this then the beak problem would not have occurred. LESSON LEARNT ???? ps THIS CHICK NOW WILL NEED ITS LOWER BEAK TRIMMED EVERY FORTNIGHT FOR THE REST OF ITS LIFE.

My nestboxes are deep. I dont use concaves at all.

Well at the moment his name is Hamish? But Kaz is thinking its a girl so may have to change that... Will post some pictures over the weekend Kaz has not decided if its a female at all. I wait for photos

I would choke on a choko the way I see it...... any vegetable that órrible that you have to go to great lengths to disguise the flavour by cooking with other things isnt worth it. You may as well eat polystyrene They're all yours CW :rofl: PS Great job on the slab prep Splat ....its hard work.

Blood usually means an early hatching. You will need to check, but if you get home in the dark......check in the morning.

you need to check that egg or the chick will dry out and stick to the shell. Was there blood ? Cardboard and wood is no good. You need tin around the aviary up to the level of 3 ft or so

Mice can get through 10mm diameter holes

5 cms is 2 inches in the old terms ...............are you sure about that ??Regards aviary mesh........never have it going down to ground level as they can walk striaght through if its 10mm or more diameter. No soil floors or they dig and tunnel in and even live in tunnels in the dirt floor.The ones on the back verandah arent safe at all ...............anything on the verandah needs to be up on legs like on a table with chrome legs that mice cant run up.....AND away from the wall as mice can run up and all over brick walls.

You need to put that pup somewhere while you work

We have a sibling to the chick who died

Females do talk Cara.............its an old wives tale told that they dont.

I am mixing up some food now, I am going out in a 10 minutes though. I didnt want the chick to die in my hands like last time, I was mixing the food and the chicks just drifted off. That had nothing to do with you, the last chick dying in your hands. BUT if you dont feed this one before putting it under the other hen it will be dead by morning.

You should have fed it BEFORE putting it in that nest.

You will realise the importance of quarantine the day you have lost birdie lives from not doing it. Like a lottery ticket..may get away with it occasionally but one day the new bird will be a carrier of something nastier and both or all will die. PS a lighter blue cere can be a blue/white cere which may be female.

Methinks you need to post a video of this issue. There are many things it could be ( not a feather in the crop ) that could be confused by a description that may or may not actually equate to what we have personally experienced.

If one is going to supplement a bird's diet with pellets, then I recommend BirD-elicious. Different context. This means if you really insist on using pellets at all, then the brand suggested is better than most.

You cant do it Matts way. Just spray the bird all over till wet, on warm day and let him dry in the sun with no breezes

I didnt mean dont spray their cages. I meant dont spray them in their cages with food and water in there