Cockatiel Egg and Chick Thread

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Phoenix lost 4 grams in 12 hours today! Is he TRYING to give me an ulcer? Also today is the last day I can safely give him his medicine. It's been 11 days and he's only supposed to get it 10 days.
 
Well, the little turd gained back 2 of those grams overnight! Don't know what in the world he's doing. He's acting fine and pooping fine and everything. In fact... he took his first flight this afternoon :D I'm SO proud! He was waddling around on the coffee table and flapping his wings and my friend and I encouraged him by flapping our arms. Then, off he went! I let him take 4 little flights then put him back in the brooder to rest. We were so excited, it was like watching your child take his first steps. I'm proud because he's only 4 weeks and 1 day old today and took his first flight a little on the young side!
 
Phoenix update! He's still doing pretty well and has flown some more. He hasn't gained any weight but it's normal for them to stop gaining or lose up to 15 percent of their weight when they start to fly so I'm not tooooo worried about it. My father and his wife arrived yesterday so they can go to our wedding in 4 days and they were really surprised by how big Phoenix is. Dad's wife saw Phoenix and thought it was Arthur. She had a hard time understanding that a bird that to her looked like an adult still needs to be kept warm and can't eat on his own yet.

I'm going to try to start lowering the heat in the brooder some. He's fully feathered now so should be able to manage his body temperature more, but it's in the mid 60s in the house and that's definitely too cold for him. On the drive down to Valdez for the honeymoon we won't be able to have his brooder plugged in so I want him to be ready for temperatures in the mid 70s (he's in the low to mid 80s right now). I plan to bring the Snuggle Safe too and heat it before we leave so he can use it if necessary, and we can always roll up the windows and turn on the heater if we have to. Romantic, eh?

Oh I forgot to say. Remember the whole egg business? We didn't want them to hatch out of fear of Arthur and Poppet possibly spreading an infection to them (if that's what made these chicks sick), and the eggs were going to hatch right before the wedding and during the honeymoon when we'll be gone. Plus I didn't feel like I could go through this again. So Paul "killed" the 3 eggs. Poppet laid 2 more though and they are scheduled to hatch sometime between right before we get back from the honeymoon and right after we get back. This may have been a poor decision, but I didn't have the heart to kill the eggs in case everything turns out okay for them. I candled both eggs and they are both fertile. I just couldn't take away their chance at living since it is reasonable to think they could survive. This time around, I am much better equipped because I know HOW to recognize slow crop and have the tools and experience necessary to take care of the chicks if they need it. I won't have to go back to school until they're 3 weeks old and that's old enough for them not to need constant care. I'm not looking forward to possibly raising chicks again, but I just couldn't take their lives. So Phoenix may have some baby siblings soon.
 
Baby Phoenix is still doing his thing! This afternoon he finally started eating seed for the first time! I was so excited :D Then this evening I was worried because he'd eaten so much seed that he wasn't hungry for formula. That's all well and fine, but he can't drink water on his own yet so the water in the formula is very important. I had to force feed 3 CCs of formula :( I removed the millet from the brooder so hopefully his crop will empty completely in a few hours and he'll be hungry for more formula.

Phoenix is going to have a weird few days because our wedding is tomorrow and his feeding schedule is already getting fairly odd because of it!
 
Well, we're back from the "birdymoon"! Which is what I've been calling the honeymoon. Ned is grumpy that we didn't bring him too and have a bunnymoon.

Baby Phoenix is doing well. He's 6 weeks old now! He's all nice and healthy now and I'm sure glad to be home after a week on the road. He's been SUCH a pain to feed lately- he's refusing formula but not eating real food properly so I have to practically force feed him.

Baby Phoenix is now a big brother! The two eggs hatched while we were gone. I asked the pet sitter not to look in the nest box, but one of the eggs looked like it was only a day or so away from hatching when we left on the honeymoon. Of course the first thing I did when we got back from the trip was run and look in the nest box. The two little fuzzies are looking pretty good, I think the older one is about 5 days old and the younger about 2. They both look a little pale but I don't know what to do about that.

As you can imagine, I'm very disillusioned with the baby bird thing since I let myself fall in love with Kieran, Teddy and Neeja, just to lose them after trying so hard. I'm going to do my best to remain distant emotionally from the new chicks, until they're at least 2 weeks old. Of course I'll do what I can to help them, but no freaking out over everything. What happens, happens. That being said, do you guys think we should name the new babies? Paul wants to name them all after tanks because tanks are big and strong and maybe the babies will be that way too if we give them tank names.
 
Wait a minute...you took the Phoenix on your HONEYMOON?

SERIOUSLY?

I'm dying laughing - that is probably something I would do.

Welcome back!
 
Yep Peg, Phoenix crashed our honeymoon! We stayed at 2 bed and breakfasts down in Valdez and the owners of both fell in love with him. He's a very charming little guy. I have a fantastic picture I took of him too that I'll share here in the next couple of days.

We stayed at a hotel for 2 nights also and they don't allow pets, so we had to sneak him in. Paul casually carried the brooder in wrapped up in a blanket while I had Phoenix in my jacket. He of course let out a really loud chirp right when we were passing the front desk, but we acted like we didn't hear anything and no one stopped us. It all worked out just fine!
 
LOL!!!!!!!! I didn't realize you took the chick with you on your honeymoon! Bless your hubby for being so supportive and understanding! I am so glad Phoenix is doing well though. Congrats on your wedding, and congrats on the 2 new chicks.
 
To funny!! Love it!!
 
TinysMom wrote:
Oh my - he got huge!
That was my thought too :shock:. He's all growed up :biggrin:

Had to smile about him going on Honeymoon - hope he didn't ' cramp your style' :p

Welcome back, and congrats on the 2 new additions. I think naming them after tanks is a great idea :)

Jan
 
Here are pictures of the new little ones. I'm only checking on them once a day (versus 3-4 times per day with the previous clutch) because I want to leave Arthur and Poppet to do their thing without intervening too much unless it looks like something is going wrong. I'm trying VERY hard not to get attached, but it's hard because they're all tiny and fuzzy. The bigger chick's toes are starting to turn gray and I can see gray on his wings and he was hissing at me. Based on their weights and how they look, I'm guessing they're 2 and 4 days old. The younger chick is 13 grams and the older is 22. Phoenix is 70, for comparison. They grow fast!

They have food on their faces, I cleaned them up after taking the pictures.


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Any name suggestions for them? Tanks or dinosaurs maybe, or other strong things... They sound very much like little dinosaurs! I was thinking Rex after the T-Rex (and Rex from Toy Story) for one and Adler for the other. Adler is the German word for Eagle. We like Kevin too after the bird from Up (and Phoenix, Adler and Kevin would be pretty funny, all named after other birds) but I don't know if it's tough enough. Just plain Tank could be a good name, too!
 

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