Cockatiel Egg and Chick Thread

[SnowyShiloh]

Oh my gosh. I got the babies both fed and everything, and when Teddy fell out of my hand when I went to put him back in the brooder. I was opening the lid with one hand and he was in my other, screaming because he was hungry (it takes a while for healthy cockatiels to get food into their stomachs from the crop and it takes these guys even longer so they act like they're starving when they have full crops), and he toppled out of my hand. Thankfully I was sitting on the edge of the couch at the time, and I caught him with my thighs. It didn't feel like I caught him too hard and he didn't even stop screaming for food, but I hope he's not injured. Poor guy cannot catch a break. Ugh :sad::sad:

 

[JadeIcing]

*hugs*

 

[hartleybun]

:hug: you will probably find that the parents are a lot rougher with the babies than you think. i learnt this when my choc lab, brandy, had her litter. i was treating them like little pieces of wedgwood bone chine, she was treating them like nine pins

keep up the good work and remember to look after yourself tooray:

 

[SnowyShiloh]

Poor babies Teddy doesn't seem to be improving. Teddy and Neeja both weigh 29 grams. They're still losing grams Neeja seems to be improving very slightly every day- so slight that I can't even notice it from day to day?! But he's not gaining weight. They have been on meds for almost 72 full hours now. How long should I keep going with Teddy on this? Tell me what you think

Phoenix is 48 grams this afternoon, up from 45 last night. I was worried because the last 3 medication times his crop felt softer, but this time it feels good again. Maybe Arthur and Poppet just fed him more water for a while. Hopefully he will be okay. Arthur is even more protective of Phoenix now than he used to be but isn't really warming him like he should. Since Saturday I've only seen one of the parents actually standing above Phoenix to warm him 1 time. The rest of the time they may be in the nest box but aren't snuggling him.

Going to go feed Teddy and Neeja now.

 

[SnowyShiloh]

We have a small improvement... Their poop is getting to be a more acceptable color and texture. Before their poop was practically fluorescent green because they were taking so long to digest and the bad bacteria in their intestines made it that color. For the feedings last night and this morning, I added crushed papaya tablets. I don't know if that's what's doing it, but their poop is more olive green now. It still doesn't look good per se, but it's less bad at least...

 

[SnowyShiloh]

I've spent a lot of time thinking about this, as I'm sure you can imagine. Teddy and Neeja have made hardly any progress since they started getting medicine 3 days ago. All the things that I thought were progress ended up not really being much. For instance, I don't think Teddy's crop is actually emptying any faster than it was on Saturday and there was actually a slight change in poop color for a little while last night before it went back to being fluorescent green. They're losing a little more weight every day and the difference between them and Phoenix is so startling. Tomorrow it will be 1 week since I really realized there was a problem- that's half of their lives. There was a problem before that too but I didn't realize what it was. I'm afraid that even if they did somehow manage to survive, they would be very sickly adults too.

Paul and I have decided to give them until Thursday night to make noticeable improvements or we're going to take them to be euthanized on Friday morning. Of course if they make some miracle recovery on Friday morning we would not have them euthanized. Friday will be 6 days of medication.

I decided against returning them to the nest box because they would simply starve and dehydrate to death over the period of a couple days while the yeast and bacterial infections took their toll too. Going to the vet would be the quickest and least painful method for them.

I hope people don't criticize me for this. Believe me, it breaks my heart to think about giving up on them, but I don't want their little lives to be so full of suffering forever. It's even harder because they associate me with food and get very excited when they see me because they're so hungry. Next week I'm going to be out of town for 4 or 5 days (it is unavoidable) and if I did drag out their lives until then, Paul would not be able to give them the round the clock care that I am because he has to go to work. If they have improved by the time I go out of town, they won't need as much care (and will hopefully be back with their parents even) so Paul would be able to handle it.

Phoenix we will be staying with Arthur and Poppet and we'll hope for the best because he appears to be doing okay so far. If he does end up getting sick, there's not much I can do for him because he's already being given the same medications as Teddy and Neeja and parent fed babies do better than hand fed ones anyway.

 

[hartleybun]

:hug: one of the most difficult things about having pets is doing the right thing for them. so often we have to act in their best interests - something that can be so heartbreaking. no one will ever think ill of you - you have done so much for these little birds, far more than most breeders would ever do. you have given them a chance. sadly nature will not let them take it.

am thinking of you both. ray:xx

 

[SnowyShiloh]

Just gave everyone meds and got Neeja and Teddy fed. I weighed Phoenix and he gained 6 grams since yesterday and is now 51 grams and on target for his age. He weighs 22 grams more than the other chicks and is 3 and 4 days younger. He weighs 8 grams more than Kieran did at this age (Kieran was sick and I just didn't know it yet). He's 9 days old. I'm pleased that he's growing well. His crop has a good feel to it tonight. It felt soft for 3 rounds of medicine yesterday/today (the days run together since the little ones get round the clock care and we're in Alaska so it doesn't get dark!) but the past 2 rounds of medicine it has felt good. I'm not going to let myself think he's out of the woods for another couple weeks.

Here's the little chunk. The parents are a little messy when they feed him and I always clean his face when I take him out for medicine, but for some reason I cleaned his face after taking the pictures.

 

[SnowyShiloh]

OH MY GOSH. Neeja and I just had a very scary experience! Even worse than the one with Teddy this morning. The temperature in the brooder was going up for some reason and sometimes it registers as being hotter than it is because one of the chicks is sitting on one of the thermometer probes. I peeked in to check it out and sure enough, there was Teddy, sitting on it. But where was Neeja? He was in a cup of water! You're supposed to put an open container of water in the brooder to keep it humid inside, and last night I upgraded to a much taller mug that I didn't think they could get into and I put a Beanie Baby between the chicks and the water so he had to scale the Beanie Baby, then somehow get into the mug.

About half an hour ago I filled the mug with very hot water from the sink to help keep the brooder warm. Neeja fell into the cup. Thankfully, the water level was low enough that his head was above the water, but talk about a moment of panic! He would have drowned if he'd fallen in head first. Also I checked the temperature of the water and it was 102 degrees. Chick temperature is about 103 degrees so assuming he wasn't in there for very long, it didn't cool him or heat him up. He doesn't seem to have breathed in any water. Poor little baby. I feel so guilty We'll know in the next couple of days how long he was in there because his skin will have been burned by the hot water if he was in there a long time since the water was pretty hot when I put it in and liquid temperatures over 110 degrees cause burns to chicks :bawl:

 

[Nela]

Oh geez Shiloh! You know, long long ago I thought I wanted cockatiel babies since I was pretty used to handrearing but yanno what, I think you've cured any any doubt that it might be fun to do that again :expressionlessLol :expressionlessI think you'll need a nice vacation after this. Are you doing any sort of honeymoon? If there is anything I can do to help, don't be afraid to ask.

Sending hugs and kisses from everyone here to everyone there!

 

[landi]

one of our chicks decided it was going to go for a swim last week i had filled the kitchen sink with water and put the pots in to be washed but i need to go and use the loo whilst up there charlie [daddy] was making right noise so i came running down to find the chick with his head bobbing up and down covered in bubbles i had the scare of my live luckily he was on a cup but he was wrapped in a towel patted down and then i used my hairdryer on him at a low speed & heat he looked very clean and fluffy afterwards lol but it scared the life out of me and of course i was in on my own .
as for your babies its your decision and its going to be a very hard one no one elses.
I've read that your getting married congratulations which is going to take up alot of time.
dont let anyone criticize you but on a personal note i would give it another go when things are settled maybe in a year we had all DIS first time like i said before upsetting that nothing hatched but easier than getting attached and then loosing one or more. You take care

 

[TinysMom]

Shiloh - only you & Paul know what is best for the babies - you are there with them.

You have to make the decisions that you can live with - and if the whole world disagrees - who cares? They're not you - they've not seen / heard /experienced what you've seen/heard/experienced...

You know you have my support no matter what your decision is....and my pm box is always open.

 

[Nela]

Agreeing with Peg...

It's terribly hard now but maybe as days progress and as they get older they will have a better outlook. Don't get beat down just yet. When you see it in their eyes that they want to go, that will be the time. You'll know it, you'll feel it. And there will be no guilt, no blame, no bad feelings that you should feel at that point. You havedone beyond what most people would have done for them. You have given it your all. IF that time comes, then know you will have offered them a fighting chance and then peace.

I, myself, am staying positive. Hang in there, it may look grim but they're still fighting. If they're still screaming for food, you know they aren't ready to call quits yet.:winkMan do I ever remember how noisy they are!

ray:

 

[SnowyShiloh]

The screaming for food kills me because I know they're really hungry but their crops won't empty fast enough to feed them properly. They're wasting away Kieran screamed for food up until an hour or so before he died... they are very food oriented little guys.

 

[SnowyShiloh]

Phoenix's crop is feeling soft again. Hopefully Arthur and Poppet just drank a lot of water before they fed him or something. Today he is 10 days old. The exact age that I knew for sure all of his siblings were having crop problems too. We were thinking it was caused by something the parents were eating (bread), but it could also be that one of the parents has some sort of infection that they're strong enough to fend off but the babies aren't.

 

[SnowyShiloh]

His crop is STILL soft and a little smaller than it was before. Like I said before, if it's sour crop, I'm not going to do anything other than be sad. He's been getting the exact same medications as the others and if they couldn't stop the sour crop from even beginning, even while he had the benefit of being fed by his parents instead of formula, I don't think being removed from his parents is going to do any good. He hasn't pooped on me since yesterday afternoon and he usually poops like clockwork every single time he's taken out of the nest. Not pooping could be a sign that he's not digesting right. I'd imagine we'll know for sure if he has sour crop in the next couple of days because he'll only get worse.

I know I've said this before, but I am never breeding again. I'll leave that to other people. I had the feeling something like this would happen before the eggs even hatched because I have this horrible effect on pregnant things.

 

[SnowyShiloh]

Ok, I decided with the advice from my breeder friend to put Teddy and Neeja back in the nest box long enough for them to be fed, then back into the brooder. I'm about to put them in. She said their infections *shouldn't* pass from Neeja and Teddy to Phoenix, but to be more on the safe side I'm going to move Phoenix out of the nest box when the other chicks are in there and then clean it after I take them out and before I put Phoenix back in.

Wish us luck.

 

[SnowyShiloh]

Okay, they're in... They're screaming for food! I wonder what Arthur and Poppet think of them. Hopefully I'll hear feeding sounds soon.

 

[landi]

good luck

 

[SnowyShiloh]

Neeja has been fed and is back in the brooder asleep already, Teddy is still screaming for food and when I checked on him a couple minutes ago, he hadn't actually been fed yet in spite of me hearing feeding noises! I will leave him in there for a while longer and then take him out and handfeed him if necessary. Maybe the parents only ate enough food to feed Phoenix so they need a while to eat more and fill their crops again.