Cockatiel Egg and Chick Thread

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Christina, isn't it funny? I had thought of Adler and Igel for them already. I may actually have to do it. When I was an exchange student in Austria, a friend of my host family who was a pastry chef made me an "American Igel" cake for my birthday- it was the cutest hedgehog cake ever!

Edit- okay, talked to Paul. He loves Adler and Igel. Igel is pronounced like "eagle" in case anyone was wondering. Now, which chick should get which name? It may be funny to have the bigger chick be Igel and the smaller chick Adler. I donno.
 
On second thought, we've decided not to name the chicks until they're 14 days old and are more likely to survive. They'll just be Big Chick and Little Chick or something until then. They're both doing fine and are approximately 4 and 6 days old today.
 
You just made me laugh. From "Eagle" and Igel to Big Chick, Little Chick. Well, I like Big Chick and Little Chick too. It would be a kicker if you named the little one "Big Chick" and the bigger one "Lil Chick". For now anyway.
 
:)im finally able to log on and catch up with this thread - birdymoon!:biggrin: that is priceless. im so glad things are working out for this little bird - perhaps now you can relax a little and enjoy married life:)
 
Baby update! The big baby is doing well. I think he's going to be weaned within a week! Way to go, Phoenix! The little babies are doing well, too. They are 5 and 7 days old now. They both have their eyes open to varying degrees and the older chick has a nice little hairdo going and a good number of pinfeathers. Their weights are right on target for their ages (assuming I guessed their ages right- been weighing them for 4 days though and their weights gain has been very steady and matches the ideal weights for chicks those ages) and no sign of illness yet. Arthur and Poppet are being good parents still. I'm hoping they will continue to be good parents for at least another week, then I can step in to hand raise them if necessary. If I have to start hand raising them before then, that's okay- they're old enough now that they'll need to be fed about 6 times a day. If they make it to 14 days before needing to be hand raised, they'll need to be fed 4 times a day. That's not so bad. I start school at the beginning of the semester and my schedule is actually great this time around, I'll only be gone about 5 hours per day so it won't interfere with their feeding schedule much. Also Paul and I decided to get this brooder topper if we have to hand raise them: http://www.avitec.com/Aquarium-Brooder-Tops-p/avq.htm

They're expensive, but breeders love the things because they do an excellent job at keeping the temperature steady and have a thermostat built in. Heating pads can be pretty hard to regulate and I'm always afraid it will start a fire! And being gone for 5-6 hours a day for school I would worry constantly about the chicks overheating or getting too cold. The brooder topper will mean I won't need to worry.

After all that, I'm STILL trying not to get too excited about these chicks. Things can still go south. Little Kieran, Teddy and Neeja all started showing signs of sour crop at 9 days old and appeared fine before then. I won't breathe a sigh of relief until they reach 2 weeks. Even then, Phoenix got sick at 2 1/2 weeks! I have an Excel spread sheet of all their weights though and these two new chicks weigh more than the first round of chicks did at their ages- this was before I even knew the other chicks were sick. Big Chick even weighs a little more than Phoenix did, who was perfectly healthy at the time.
 
Phoenix was kind of alarmed by how loud his baby siblings are!

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Well, I have gone and gotten my hopes up already! :pThey're too adorable! It's sucha shame that I am so allergic or I might threaten you with popping up in Alaska :biggrin2:
 
Well, the babies' weight gain has slowed some. Just checked on them and neither of them have full crops and the parents were not in the nest, but they went in after I put the babies back and are feeding the chicks some.

Before they abandoned Phoenix at 14 days, they did this too- they would leave him alone and then only feed him when I dug around in the nest box. Hopefully they aren't thinking about abandoning these chicks. If they do, the good thing is I feel comfortable hand raising the babies from this point. Normally you don't pull for handfeeding until 2-3 weeks and they're 8 and 10 days, but they're big enough now that it would be okay especially since I have experience. Even the younger chick weighs a full 20 grams more than poor Kieran did the day he died :(

Hopefully everything will be fine though! I'm not really worried, just inwardly groaning at the idea of starting over with handfeeding since Phoenix just weaned yesterday :D They would need to be fed 5 times a day at this point. At least it would be with an 8 hour gap overnight so I could get decent sleep! I'd rather have to handfeed the chicks starting right now and have them survive to adulthood though! And I'm sure handfeeding them would be like 100 times easier than Phoenix because even though he only had to be fed twice a day for the past 2 1/2 weeks (then once a day, then nunce a day as of a couple days ago), he was SO hard to feed and it was so frustrating and took so long. A pair of eager babies would be much easier.
 
Hehe, I'm not an angel! I feel bad now for having Paul dispatch the first 3 eggs in the clutch :( They died before they started to develop, but maybe everything would have been fine for them since these chicks are fine. I'm glad (so far, that could change if these babies get deathly ill and suffer terribly) I didn't have the heart to kill these two eggs and was hopeful enough to let them develop. I had Paul kill the first 3 eggs out of love- I was afraid the babies would get sick and suffer and die, or that Arthur and Poppet would ditch the babies and they'd starve to death while we were on the honeymoon. These last 2 eggs weren't even supposed to hatch until after the honeymoon but they hatched early. If all 5 eggs HAD hatched, chances are they wouldn't have all made it though (that's a lot of babies!) and actually these 2 youngest chicks would have been most disadvantaged and most likely to die because they would have been smaller and weaker than their siblings.

Anyway, the 2 chicks are doing well today. They have full crops and are little chunkers! The older one is 11 days today and 61 grams- only 10 less than Phoenix! Phoenix is small though. He's doing well, but he's small. The younger chick is 9 days and 52 grams. They are up 9 and 12 grams since yesterday, which is great. Yesterday their crops weren't full when I weighed them.

My plan is to leave them with Mom and Dad for as long as they'll care for the babies, then hand raise them if the parents stop feeding them or pluck their feathers or flat out reject them (like Arthur did to poor Phoenix).
 
Phoenix got his wings clipped tonight! We clipped the first 3 feathers on each wing. It makes it so he flies slower and can't gain as much altitude. We let/made him fly around a couple times like that, and then tomorrow night we will clip a couple more feathers. I prefer having my birds clipped because there's no risk of them flying into walls or windows that way or otherwise getting hurt (Arthur's first mate was good at flying and died after she flew into a wall). Phoenix also got some fresh spinach tonight and spent a good hour caring around the leaves and chewing on them. So cute! Cockatiels are notoriously picky and skeptical of new foods, so I'm trying to introduce him to lots of foods while he's still a little guy.

We're thinking of naming the chickies again now that they're a bit older. I don't know that we'll go with Adler and Igel after all. Any suggestions?
 
So please that the new chicks are doing well and pheonix is looking good will have to try and get some of my latest pics on
ours are named Cookie Jaffa and Chalky



Parents are Cheeky & 'Charlie
 
Oh gosh! I heard the babies making weird sounds, looked in the nest box, and I think Arthur attacked the older chick because he has a bleeding wound on his back! I am getting the brooder all warmed up because I'm going to hand raise them now. Poor little baby. Some of his feathers have been plucked too and he hasn't gained any weight since yesterday. His younger sibling is unharmed. Thankfully the wound is small enough that I don't think he'll have any problems from it:

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Waiting to hear back from the cockatiel breeder and then I'll most likely go along with the hand raising and take down the nest box so hopefully the parents won't lay more eggs. Their baby privileges have been revoked!
 
Jan, my breeder friend thinks the wound could actually be from a toe nail- I clipped Arthur's and Poppet's nails before the babies hatched though so they aren't sharp. I suppose the younger chick could have done it though. I'm not convinced it wasn't intentional, based on how Arthur attacked Phoenix as a chick. He could have done serious damage to the babies so I'm glad I was here to intervene both times. With Phoenix, he was about 16 days old and had already been out of the nest box for 2 days. That shouldn't have been long enough for Arthur to forget who he was though! Poppet had already laid more eggs, and I think Arthur thought Phoenix was a threat to the new eggs.

This time around, if it was Arthur who attacked the baby, I suspect it was because Arthur is jealous of the chicks. It's not THAT uncommon for males to hurt the chicks because they take all the female's time. Arthur is very prone to jealousy I've learned! Even if the wound was not intentional, I don't feel too bad about taking the chicks because the older one also has had several feathers plucked and I looked closely at the younger chick and he's had several plucked too. It isn't healthy for them to remain with parents who are plucking them, especially since I have the time, equipment and knowledge to hand raise them myself.
 
I can't believe it- I took the chicks from their parents 6 1/2 hours ago and their crops STILL have not emptied. I do not want to deal with sour crop again :( At least I know what to do this time around. Hopefully the little ones will make it anyway. I'll need another prescription for Nystatin (an antifungal), but other than that, I have everything I need.
 
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