- Joined
- 7/31/16
- Messages
- 98
Thank you! That was very nice of you to say.
We try our best.
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This has become a form of diary, so I can tell a little of our learning experience during this time.
It has been some exhausting weeks. The insecurity has been the worst. Are we doing it right? Will he survive? Is he fed enough? Is he fed too much? Is he too cold? Is he too warm?
When BB2 (the middle chick) was abandoned and left to die by his mother we tried so hard to save him, but it was to late, de died the same evening. But he died with a full crop, warm, and in my husbands hands, and that was comforting in a way.
The very next day we saw the same signs of abandonment with Mini, and took action.
We started warming him up, and handfeeding him right away. And just in time.
My daugther and I took shifts. She took the first feeding before she went to the university, and I took over when she left. When she came back from school we both shared the tasks. Eighter she walked the dog, and I fed Mini, or I walked the dog and she fed the Mini. It was, and still is, a full time job for us both.
It took a while, but after a week placed in a box under a heating lamp, feeding formula every 1-2 hours, we got hoped that he was out of immediat danger. He gained only 1 g a day at this time, but he was not as weak anymore.
When he was 9 days, we discovered that he had "splented legs", and treated that with a rubber band and a piece of straw, and he started walking.
At the end of the second week of handfeeding, mother started feeding him again. He grew stronger, but this time Baby didn't get enough food, and stopped gaining weight. And that's when I started this tread.
Now we still feed every 2-3 hours, but now it is more of a supplementation, and it seems to be going very well.
With our help mother manage to feed them both, not quite enough, but nearly.
Baby eats mostly from her mother, but also a little formula, and a little by her self, gaining weight, is exploring, playing, screaming at her father when he screams at her. She is getting ready to fly, seeking human contact, and is a cutie.
Mini gets a lot of food from his mother, and some additional formula from us. He is still heavily underweight, but he is growing bigger and stronger every day. I guess he always will be a small bird, and he will probably never be able to climb, sit on a perch or a finger, due to no grip in his feet, but he can have a good life despite this handicap.
We can build ramps and platforms where he can walk and play. Hopefully he will be able to fly, but time will show. If he can't fly, we will overcome that obstacle too.
But it has not been only stress and worrying, it has been a lot of good moments too.
The moments when I was feeding Mini with a syringe, and Baby crawled on top of my hand trying to get some, because she was hungry too. Then mother came, feeding Baby just a few cm from my hand. There we were, two mothers feeding two hungry children side by side.
The first time this happened I got tears in my eyes of the trust the mother showed me just then.
And yesterday when I fed Baby a little formula, and father bird came, sitting on the top of my head, and mother sitting on my shoulder wathing me feeding their baby. A fantastic experience.
This was a long post, but I felt like sharing some of the experience we've had this last 3,5 weeks. It feels rewarding right now, but I hope we'll never find our self in this stressful position again.
for taking such good care of your babies. I can just picture the parents watching you, like 2 pigeons on a wire!!
