Kirboxx

on a sad note this little ones sibling has disappeared from my aviary, came home from work yesterday and went to check on them and the baby above was the only one in the box. I have no idea where or how it got it, the wiring on the cage is quite small and the baby was near fledgling. There are no signs of blood or pest activity or even excessive amounts of feathers.

this was the clearest I could get as he was quite fidgety. You can see the split that started as a hairline one a couple weeks ago and there looks to be a small piece missing at the top of that bottom beak, there has been a bit of food getting stuck in the bottom the last few days and the baby gets upset when I go to clean it out.

hi all, I have a hen who has 2 babies that hatched 1 & 3 October. I noticed early on with one there was a small hairline crack/split in their lower beak. I kept an eye on it when I checked them each day and have always checked the upper mandable for dried food. Today I checked on them and this little one had a couple specks of blood on their face and it looks like the crack has opened up a little - like barely even a mm. I haven't experienced this before with any of the clutches from this hen last year or my other hen so I'm not sure how serious this is or will become. Is there anything I need to be more concerned about like the split opening more? Or with age will the beak harden and the baby be okay to crack seed? Has anyone else experienced this and what was their outcome? Thanks.

that is the one I described earlier unfortunately so if it is a male then I only have 3 females in there and one is the mother, one is a 12 week old and the other is sitting on her second clutch of eggs. My aviary is 1.8m long, 1.5m wide and 2m tall. I have 9 budgies and 3 tiels in there. No plans to add any more. 2 budgies are too young to breed, only about 12 weeks. I have 2 cockatiel boxes (a pair of budgies took one) and 3 budgie boxes, all mounted all high separated

bub is doing well, he is eating from the spoon and gaining weight. His poo changed colour and texture pretty drastically but I assume that is from the sudden change of diet. I was watching the parents of this little one this afternoon and noticed that the possible attacker is attracted to mum. I am a little unsure as to whether this bird is male or female, it's cere has been quite pink from the time I purchased it about 6 months ago, it also has a very bright yellow beak and solid black eyes with no ring. Anyway, mum and dad (both green) would be next to each and dad would regurgitate to mum then the ringer (white) would come up and scare dad off. White would then snuggle up to mum and regurgitate to her and everytime dad came close white would shoo him off again.

thanks for the help. I pulled him last night and used a wheat bag wrapped very well to keep him warm and checked him every couple of hours during the night. He has had some handrearing food today and seems to be okay. What do you recommend that I feed him?

I have another hen who had a clutch of 5 babies (I removed the 7 week olds just over a week ago) and is now sitting on 7 eggs. Is it a possibility to put the baby in with her? I have heard of people fostering the babies to other hens but I don't know the circumstances of when it is possible to do it.

it is a colony of 9, I did check all the other birds for signs of blood and only found one with a small amount near the vent, but she was on the ground above him when I found him. This is also the bird that is hanging around the parents. Could mice have done it if it had fallen from the nest? I have not hand raised before. I do have some paswells? handrearing food here though and a couple of small syringes if it is recommended I remove him from the box. I am unsure if the mum stills sleeps in the box as I have gone outside about 10pm one night and she has been asleep on the perch with dad.

I have a not quite 3 week old baby budgie. He is from a clutch of 10 eggs with only 2 going on to be fertile and hatch. His sibling was almost a week older than him. I came home from work today to find the older baby at the bottom of the cage, I am unsure of what happened and how long he had been dead but it looks like he was attacked by either one of my other birds or possibly fell out of the nest and gotten at by a mouse. The parents of these babies had a follower, another female (not breeding) that was constantly following mum around or popping into the box with her. I am not sure if this is normal or if she may have been the attacker. My trouble now is what do I do with this lone baby, mum only really goes into the box to feed them now and he is still quite small with pin feathers just starting to come in (his sibling was almost fully feathered with just a little bit of down on his belly). Should I remove him from the nest for hand-rearing now so that he isn't a victim of whoever got my other little one or do I leave him in the box and hope he will be okay?

I've had to remove 3 eggs today that were between 5 and 3 days overdue. One was accidently pulled out of the box by mum with some nesting material and broken. I checked the contents of the egg before disposing of it and it looks like it stopped growing maybe halfway through the incubation process.

Thanks Kaz, I went in there this morning to check and do it and found one more chick hatched overnight. Most were easy to get done, one had a little bit of food stuck on top of the beak, one had some nesting material stuck to his leg, the newest was fine but one poor little one had so much poop stuck on there the tissue wasn't softening it. In the end I had to try and gently as I could just peel it off his bottom, I am glad I did though because as soon as it came off he did a big poo, the dried stuff had covered his vent so he couldn't poop. Hopefully it doesnt happen again and he is healthy from here on.

thanks for the link Kaz, should I start cleaning their bottoms now and how do I go about it? They are so tiny and I am petrified I might hurt one or do something that the mother will abandon them. I didn't see anything on the subject in the article.

Welcome to the forum Pooey bottoms is very normal in young chickies. I do clean them, in my experience the hen never does. This is another reason I put Fussy Cat Litter in my nest box because it keeps the chickies so much cleaner as the poo sticks to it and not the chicks. Thanks for the quick reply and warm welcome, as far as I know the chicks have only been hatching since Friday so I am a little uncertain about how much to handle them. I will probably be poring over the breeding forums for most of the night

hello everyone, my name is Kirby and I am relatively new to owning and breeding budgies. I have a aviary with 6 burdgies (increasing by the day at the moment) and 3 weiros. I have 2 pairs of budgies breeding at the moment, one pair is currently hatching 8 eggs!!! and the other is current laying (at last count today there have been 4 eggs in the box and one casualty). My father used to breed budgies when I was a young girl so I have a few memories of baby care but he mostly left them to raise themselves where I would like to handraise/tame my babies if possible. I have a quick question, I checked the 3 chicks that have hatched so far and all seem to have a plug of poop stuck to their bottoms or near them. Is this normal or should the mum be cleaning them up? She has been doing a good job so far, they all have food in their crops when I have checked on them and she is constantly in with them sitting.