Cockatiel Egg and Chick Thread

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Indeed, Kelly! The little guy is also preening himself some (he must be so itchy!) and pulling off the feather sheaths. He's hissing at me less now that he's figuring out I feed him. He was very hissy there for a while!

I just fed him his final meal for the day. 7 CCs. In the past 24 hours he has consumed 28 CCs. For a bird his age and weight, that is exactly what he should be eating. I've read conflicting information- some things say a 15 day old bird needs 4 feedings a day, others say 5. I would probably lean towards 5, but he can't digest any faster than he can digest and if I fed him the same amount more frequently, he'd have more food hanging around in his crop just waiting to sour. So I guess we'll stick with 4 feedings per day for now. Want to know the best part? The best part is that he goes 8 hours between the last night feeding and the morning feeding! That means I'll be able to do things like sleep a decent amount of time uninterrupted. The 8 hours gives his crop a chance to empty completely once a day. Everyone agrees the crop on a handfed bird must empty completely once a day. Some people say the crop needs to empty completely between every feeding. The problem with that is if you wait until it's completely empty, you'll have even longer between feedings so the chick won't be able to eat as much food on any given day. Also it's not really healthy for a chick's crop to be completely too often, so I'd have to wait around for him checking him all the time and then feed him as soon as it was completely empty. I have lots of stuff to do right now with the wedding and my friend arriving tomorrow, so I don't really have the time to do that. Hopefully our method will work out just fine.
 
Hey Shiloh, still reading this thread and wincing every time I open it... I hope everything will work out alright. How stressful! Wish there was something I could do to help. Wishing you all the best with Phoenix and with your wedding planning. Enjoy the company!

ps: do you think you'll get away with not really showing the family where you live?
 
Hi Sophie! Since Arthur and Poppet have been relieved of their parenting duties, it doesn't really matter if other people come over. That's one of the good things I guess about hand raising Phoenix... I haven't taken the nest box off the parents' cage yet just in case I have to put him back in there or something. They're sitting in the nest box a lot, but I don't think it's because they miss Phoenix. He was in the nest box with them for a good 6 hours this morning and didn't feed him at all! His crop was completely empty when I took him out. I'm quite certain that they're gearing up to lay more eggs. That's just too bad, we aren't having more babies right now or probably ever.

I really hope he's gained weight when I weigh him in the morning!
 
I remember the "pinfeather days". *winces* Poor Sweetie would try to preen, preen, preen, and every once in awhile, he would squawk, look up to see who had hurt him, then resume preening. I don't know if the poor little guy knew that HE was the one doing it. (I should post a picture in my blog of Sweetie-in-vulture-mode).

I hope little Phoenix gets through the pokey pinfeather stage soon! :hearts:
 
I hope he gets through this stage soon too! Poor itchy baby. I'm worried because he weighs the same today as he did yesterday. Why isn't he gaining weight? :(
 
Phoenix and I are getting the hang of handfeeding! So far, after 2 1/2 whole days (ha), it's going pretty well. His poop is plentiful and of good color and texture. He's eating exactly 28 CCs of formula each day. Every 5 hours during the day and then an 8 hour stretch at night. His feeding response is getting better with each feeding and he's hissing at me less.

I reallllly hope he's gained some weight when I weigh him in a few hours. We may need to add in another feeding, which would bring him up to 35 CCs per day. I would just add it in, but there's the whole crop emptying issue so I'm waiting to hear from someone who knows more about cockatiel chicks than me. If I get permission to give him another feeding (which I hope I do, I'd rather have to feed him more often and have him gain weight!), hopefully that will help fatten him up. I keep telling myself that he's doing well- even after 3 days of not gaining weight, he still weighs as much as most chicks who are several days older.

My friend arrived from Austria today to stay with us until the wedding. She loves birds and has raised some baby geese, so of course she just about flipped her lid over how adorable Phoenix is. Her job is to hold him and cuddle him and keep him warm while I make his food :) Unfortunately I have to feed him during the night and she's sleeping in the living room, so she gets woken up by his screaming, but that's just how it is. I bought her some ear plugs :D
 
SnowyShiloh wrote:
Her job is to hold him and cuddle him and keep him warm while I make his food :) Unfortunately I have to feed him during the night and she's sleeping in the living room, so she gets woken up by his screaming, but that's just how it is. I bought her some ear plugs :D
Click to expand...
She must be soo upset! ;) Nothing wrong with cuddling babeh birdehs! :p

I showed my mum the picture of Phoenix sporting his little spiky crest, and she about died! It reminded her of when her Sweetie-bird was in "retarded-chicken mode" (as she likes to call it). That little close-up of his face is now the wallpaper on her computer! Just thought I'd share. :)
 
Phoenix's crop did not empty completely during the night :bawl: It should empty completely in the 8 hours between the night and morning feedings. There are about 2 CCs left in there. This is the main indication of sour crop. WHY is this happening to my birds?! His crop emptied yesterday morning and Monday morning and Sunday morning. I don't know what to do. I ordered some syringes with long flexible tips to use to empty his crop if necessary, and I paid for extra fast shipping (which cost twice as much as the actual syringes), but they haven't arrived yet.

I don't think I can go through with another sick baby bird. ESPECIALLY since I will be out of town from tomorrow through Tuesday so it will be Paul having to deal with it.

I actually dreamed last night that this happened

:bawl:
 
Yeah I've seen that article, thanks for looking for more info for me though!

Phoenix is no better. His poop has turned green with green urine. That means it's spending a lot of time in his digestive system after leaving the crop and that there's bacteria in there. I don't know what to do. I have to leave tomorrow for 5 days! I don't know how Paul is going to take care of a sick baby bird, he has to work. I fear Phoenix will either die while I'm gone, or worse, he'll still be alive but be very sick and dehydrated and have lost a lot of weight by the time I get home. I'd prefer he die quickly than linger and suffer.

Poppet laid an egg today.
 
I don't think Phoenix is going to make it. Terrible timing of him getting sick right before I leave! I really don't think I did anything to make him sick either, I was soooo careful. I feel so sorry for both him and Paul because he is suffering (not too greatly yet, he's mostly just hungry I think) and Paul doesn't even like the birds but has to deal with a sick one.

I'm still trying to decide what to do with that egg. I'm sure it has a baby in it. Part of me thinks maybe it will be fine, part of me is very afraid that the same thing will happen to that baby and any others that may come along and that isn't fair at all. I may have Paul remove the eggs one at a time as they are laid and put them in the freezer for an hour to kill the embryo, then let it go back to room temperature before returning it to the nest. If I wait to do it until I get home, there will be little heartbeats visible inside the eggs and I don't know if I could bring myself to kill them. I know they wouldn't feel any pain since they'd just be tiny embryos, but still. Blah. I wish they'd just taken care of Phoenix like they were supposed to instead of ditching him to make more eggs!

I'm going to be sure to get some cute pictures of Phoenix in the morning because I think there's a good chance he'll die while I'm gone or else be too sad to photograph when I get back :( He's so cute! It's been a couple days and he recognizes me as mommy now.
 
I'm sorry that he's not doing well. I know how heartbreaking it is to lose a brood (in my case, hamster litters). :hug: I hope everything works out in the end!
 
I'm leaving for the airport in half an hour :( Phoenix has been fed. He lost 8 grams since yesterday and is getting dehydrated as evidenced by his poop. My poor baby. Paul's going to care for him as best he can... I tried putting him back in the nest box on the advice of my breeder friend, but Arthur attacked him and Poppet pecked at him. He was going up to them and begging for food. It was SO SAD. My poor little baby, he is definitely my baby now. The parents have 2 new eggs as of today.

I took a bunch of pictures of Phoenix this afternoon in case I don't ever get any more :(
 
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