Beasley
Rollerblading along the road
Ive been researching like crazy and I still have so many questions.
I am confident in my hand feeding experience with rodents from rodent rescue and rabbit rescue work. I’ve used syringes, droppers, and bottles. But I never had any functional experience with baby birds.
A friend of mine breeds large parrot species for a store and someone brought in two lovebirds (they are budgies) trying to sell them to the store. They took them so the babies wouldn’t die and no one wanted to spend the time tediously hand feeding tiny birds, hence my involvement.
I got a walkthrough and guided hands on lesson, a bag of formula powder, a single syringe, a heating pad and a tub containing wood chips, millet spray, and two maybe 3w old budgies.
I’ve learned to make much smaller batches, added syringes and a bit more hygiene to the process. Plus tweaks to the formula consistency and temp per online instructions (kaytee exact).
I don’t have a gram scale, should I get one?
Does a full crop make the back of the neck look lumpy? One is substantially smaller and more bald and when he eats the nape of his neck looks bulgy.
I know not to handle them when the crop is full, but can I handle them at all otherwise? It seems sad to only enjoy them when they eat...
They’re always touching, grooming each other and seem to get on well, but the bigger one has taken to sitting on top of tiny and he also seems to bite the little guy at his neck after they eat. I am wiping them clean after each feeding. I’m probably worried about nothing but I don’t want the tiny one getting hurt.
Any advice is welcome! Thanks so much!
I am confident in my hand feeding experience with rodents from rodent rescue and rabbit rescue work. I’ve used syringes, droppers, and bottles. But I never had any functional experience with baby birds.
A friend of mine breeds large parrot species for a store and someone brought in two lovebirds (they are budgies) trying to sell them to the store. They took them so the babies wouldn’t die and no one wanted to spend the time tediously hand feeding tiny birds, hence my involvement.
I got a walkthrough and guided hands on lesson, a bag of formula powder, a single syringe, a heating pad and a tub containing wood chips, millet spray, and two maybe 3w old budgies.
I’ve learned to make much smaller batches, added syringes and a bit more hygiene to the process. Plus tweaks to the formula consistency and temp per online instructions (kaytee exact).
I don’t have a gram scale, should I get one?
Does a full crop make the back of the neck look lumpy? One is substantially smaller and more bald and when he eats the nape of his neck looks bulgy.
I know not to handle them when the crop is full, but can I handle them at all otherwise? It seems sad to only enjoy them when they eat...
They’re always touching, grooming each other and seem to get on well, but the bigger one has taken to sitting on top of tiny and he also seems to bite the little guy at his neck after they eat. I am wiping them clean after each feeding. I’m probably worried about nothing but I don’t want the tiny one getting hurt.
Any advice is welcome! Thanks so much!