need help with baby mousebird in Malawi..

[Tara H]

Hello!
I live in a forrest reserve in the south of malawi (sub-saharan africa). On saturday I rescued a little mousebird chick from somebody's lunch menu and have been taking care of it at home since. I'm a very ignorant first time mother.
I have been following the feeding guidelines on mousebirds.com but as I live in a remote place I have no access to ingredients required for the formula they recommend I have been using locally available fruits instead (banana, papaya, guava, melon and mango), mashing them up with a tiny bit of honey and water. The reason I'm in a bit of a panic is that on sunday it weighed 29gm and steadily increased in weight until yesterday (31gm) but this morning its weight was back down to 29.8gm.
Looking for supplements to add to its diet I mixed some moringa powder into its morning fruit but - for the first time- it refused food until I gave it some that was uncontaminated by the miracle moringa powder! I don't know if anyone has any tips for taking care of little mousebird chicks in the wild. Its either red-faced or blue-naped so I can't supplement its diet with insects.
On the plus side, its learning to fly and seems happy and energetic - does that sometimes cause a slight weight loss? I have fallen totally and utterly in love with it and aside from the angst associated with being an ignorant first time mother I'm ridiculously happy. We're tweeting at each other and it keeps flying onto the keyboard as I write!
Tweet tweet from Tara and little Chiko in Malawi!

 

[rikkitikki]

Re: flustered in Malawi..

welcome! I don't have the answers, but hopefully someone will be on within the coming hours to help

 

[waterfaller1]

Re: flustered in Malawi..

Welcome Tara. I responded to your other post, but this one has more info, so I will forward it to Susanne. She should be awake very soon. Hang in there.

 

[waterfaller1]

Re: flustered in Malawi..

Tara, you can supplement his diet with boiled hard egg, or insects{larvae is good too}, or bee pollen.

 

[Anne & Gang]

Re: flustered in Malawi..

welcome and bless you for rescuing t he little t yke...hopefully our resident mousebird expert will come on soon

 

[Cynthia & Percy]

Re: flustered in Malawi..

welcome

 

[srtiels]

Re: flustered in Malawi..

Tara, you can supplement his diet with boiled hard egg, or insects{larvae is good too}, or bee pollen.

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I had suggested to her to use some bee pollen, and explained what to do.

She needs to post some pix's to determine age. if the chick is starting to fly that might account for the slight weight loos and no weight gain for several days....which is normal.

It is hard to help when there is little responce and info back when I had tried to help her last week.

MODS...can you move this thread to Softbill Circle?

 

[Birdiemarie]

Re: flustered in Malawi..

Welcome to the Avenue. Thank you for helping this little bird.

 

[Gen120]

Re: flustered in Malawi..

Welcome to the Avenue! thanks for saving that bird

 

[expressmailtome]

Re: flustered in Malawi..

Welcome and enjoy the site!

Matt

 

[Marlene]

Re: flustered in Malawi..

and Glad you joined. Sounds like you got some help already.

 

[luvsgreys]

Re: flustered in Malawi..

Welcome to the Avenue and what a blessing you are to this little bird!

 

[Tara H]

Re: flustered in Malawi..

Dear all,

thank you for your warm welcome and support! Internet access is slow and sporadic here and I was unable to communicate sooner. Suzanne, I'm sorry not to have gotten back to you sooner. Our connection isnt good enough for me to be able to post any photo's, but I have been taking pictures and will be doing that the next time I go into town.

Chiko seems to be growing and changing every day. We have increased the amount of food s/he gets, and are feeding whenever its hungry (and making sure that its excreting before or after meals), there has been a slight weight gain as a result. She is quiet a picky eater and we are only giving her things she likes (guava is her favourite, papaya she likes small amounts of and she has been refusing banana's even though she seemed to love them last week).

Susanne said that red faced and blue naped birds don't eat insects, is it ok for me to give her a hard boiled egg? I will try to find some bee polen. I have sweet potatoe and carrots, can I give that to her boiled and mashed now or should I wait until s/he's older?

Our main concern at the moment is that Chiko seems to be covered with big lice on her primary feathers and she seems to be loosing a lot of feathers around her neck with the scratching. I have some neem seed oil - a natural pesticide - but I didnt know if that would damage his or her feathers. I also have some homemade neem tincture, would that be more appropriate? Are there any other suggestions for getting rid of lice?

Its a relief to know that the slight weight loss was normal. S/he's flying short distances and hops all over us! Having read through the posts on the emergency forum I am being very careful about potential landings.

Thank you all again. You really are a wonderful community and I'm grateful for my internet connection - and access to you - however unreliable it is!

Big love to all you wonderful bird lovers!

 

[GG.]

Re: flustered in Malawi..

this is a copy of Tara's welcome thread - I have moved it here to softbill circle to assist with answering her questions and concerns

gg

 

[srtiels]

Our main concern at the moment is that Chiko seems to be covered with big lice on her primary feathers and she seems to be loosing a lot of feathers around her neck with the scratching. I have some neem seed oil - a natural pesticide - but I didnt know if that would damage his or her feathers. I also have some homemade neem tincture, would that be more appropriate? Are there any other suggestions for getting rid of lice?
-----------------------------------------------------

OK...year ago I beleive Neem was planted which brought back dwindling populations of Blue-naped (BN) mousebirds. If you can find any neem plants you might want to offer the flowers to Chiko to nibble on. And also you can crush some of the leaves in you hand and use the neem leaves as bedding or near wherever she/he sleep. If you have any neem oil you can massage a little onto the feet. The system will absorb it into the system.

External parasites can be a problem. If it is biting mites there is a possibilty if a secinday tapeworm problem so the bird will have to be dewormed.

But for feather lice and mites, you can use a dust that contain Pyrethrin or Carbayl (Seven 5% dust) that is used for garden plants and and use a cottenball to lightly dust the underside of the wings, tail and neck and shoulder area of the bird. If you have any chrsanthymum (contain pyrethrin) or marigold flowers crush a flower in your hand and you can use the crushed flower to wipe down the birds body anywhere you have seen the mites. And if you can find these flowers in pots/containers you can place them near the birds cage and they will act as an insect repellant.

NOTE: If the bird is a BN. at 12 days you can tell the sex. When feathered do you remember if there was a pale blue patch on the back of the head? The males will have this and the females will not. BUT both sexes will molt in the turquoise patch by the time they are 2-3 months old.

 

[srtiels]

Oh...and a natural dewormer for birds is when you give papaya, leave several of the seeds attached to the wedge of fruit. It is the papaya seeds that have anti-parasitic properties.

 

[65sunnyday]

Best of luck to you & little mousebird--aren't they adorable? I will look for more info on Softbill circle--looking forward to photos.

 

[sweethartza]

Welcome, Tara.
I was you last december. I'm from South Africa. My dad found 2 brown speckled-mousebird chicks in the garden and they were almost dead. I also didn't know what to do or what kind of birds they were. I had to go with my instinct. I actually fed them baby formula mixed with egg-yolk and they woke up in a few days. After i realized they were mousebirds, i also mashed some soft fruits (bananas, pawpaw,grapes etc). they really loved the bananas. and as they got older i gave them pieces of fruits. they really eat and poop. Don't worry about the weight-loss, it is more possible that it could be that the chick is flying - that takes a lot of energy. just make sure that it is fed whenever it is hungry (maybe every 30 minutes). You said that it is very energetic and seems happy so that's a good thing. In terms of the moringa powder, just try giving it to the chick for a week. if it still doesn't like it, then try to find a substitute. Also try giving it boiled eggs (mine love the white part more than the yolk). my babies didn't like the "formula" or the pellets at first but they took a liking later on. right now they cannot go a day without the pellets. By the sound of it, you are doing a great job and a good "mom". I'm sure right now you realize how affectionate and loving mousebirds are and there is never a dull moment. Keep us posted as to how it doing. Send all my love to it too. sweethartza (Shaz).

 

[waterfaller1]

Shaz, this thread is from February. Many times people come for help, but they may or may not stay on and continue to post. We would love it if you started your own thread about your mousebirds here in the softbill forum. And start a thread in the welcome forum so everyone can say hello!

 

[65sunnyday]

I would love a Mousebird thread !!!