Cockatiel Egg and Chick Thread

[JadeIcing]

Awesome! How you feeling?

 

[dixonsrabbitry1]

Would this help? I was wondering if you could use baytril for sour crop and came across that instead.

http://www.acstiels.com/Articles/Health/sourcrop.htm

I used to raise cockatiels. thankfully i never had to deal with sour crop. Wish I could help more.

If you do decide to continue to breed cockatiels, don't let this get you down. It could be just a fluke. Its very hard to lose birds when raising them and it sucks when it happens. I never lost a tiel. But I have lost a few baby pigeons I have tried to save. Sometimes you will have good hatches, and sometimes you have bad. A few times you have issues after they have hatched. i lost my first couple of baby pigeons a few years ago because the parents fed them peas from the pigeon feed, and it was sad. I ended up switching to pelleted feed because of it.

Good luck. I hope he makes it, and grows into a beautiful adult bird. They are cute little guys when they hit the feather stage. Sorry about the others.

I still have my firstbaby hatched in about 1997. No longer have his mom or dad.

 

[SnowyShiloh]

I'm very happy Phoenix seems to be on the mend. Slowly but surely! He is 59 grams as of tonight. Here are pictures of him and a video- sorry it's sideways, my friend took it sideways. We'll try again tomorrow.

As for me... I'm not doing great. I got a very strange cold (severe sore throat, no other symptoms) that I think is stress induced. I have now lost my voice and cannot speak in more than a whisper. Only 10 days until the wedding so hopefully I'll be healthy then!

 

[hartleybun]

:inlovehmy! the grandmaster of cute! wow!now you can concentrate on yourself!

 

[JadeIcing]

Oh he looks perfect! *kisses to him*

You relax and enjoy the days leading to your wedding. You deserve a wonderful blessed day. *hugs*

 

[mistyjr]

Wow!! They grow up pretty fast dont they!! Hes a cutie,

 

[GoinBackToCali]

I held my breath when I opened this thread..

 

[dixonsrabbitry1]

Aww. He is c ute.

 

[SOOOSKA]

OMG he's so cute and grown so much.

Does he hang out with his parents?

Susan

 

[irishbunny]

He looks like a proper birdie now So cute

 

[SnowyShiloh]

Isn't he a cutie? He can lift his crest up but didn't want to do it for the pictures. He gained 2 grams since yesterday morning. His crop did not empty completely overnight (it still had just a little in it), but hopefully it's normal for them to kind of waffle back and forth when they're getting better. He was fed the same amount yesterday afternoon and his crop emptied in 6 1/2 hours.

He's going to be flying soon! Amazing. This morning he started flapping his wings, which they do to build up the muscles so they can fly. As you can imagine, I'm quite nervous about him flying because he could fly into a wall or something and be killed. One of my previous tiels who was good at flying died when she flew into a wall. I could theoretically clip his wings now so he can't fly, but learning to fly is an important developmental milestone so I'm going to let him take a few flights so he learns how to do it and then clip him. Also if he flies with a full crop and bumps into something, the food could go into his throat and he could breathe it in and die so we don't want that!

He's actually a little young to be doing the wing flapping, but that is fine with me. He's precocious even if he is little! Unfortunately, along with learning to fly they stop gaining weight or lose weight for a few days. It's completely normal, but I really want to fatten him up before he decides to stop gaining or lose! Also, I had my breeder friend look at him and she says he looks very healthy. Birds who have not received proper nutrition get funny looking tail feathers and his look perfect, so that's good.

 

[LuvaBun]

Oh wow! What a difference a few days makes. He looks awesome

Parts of the video when he was close up to the camera with his beak open made me think of a horror movie, especially with the noise he was making .

Hope your sore throat gets better and your voice recovers soon, or else you could be signing your vows instead of saying them

Jan

 

[SnowyShiloh]

Jan, I hadn't thought of that! Too funny!

Phoenix is still the same. Crop emptying slowly but not ridiculously so. I forgot to weigh him this morning (remembered when I'd already given him medicine which weighs some) but last night he weighed 60 grams. He's still underweight for sure, but at least 60 is better than 52. He's flapping his wings all the time now to strengthen the muscles. I usually put him in a small bucket while I get his food ready, and this morning he figured out how to pull himself up the side with his beak and perch on top, then kind of hop/flutter/stumble down the towel to the table so he can waddle around while I make the food. His development is fantastic and you wouldn't think anything was wrong with him by looking at him or watching what he does!

Last night we had our first real snuggle. I cuddled him against my chest with one hand wrapped around him and the other petting his head. He stopped begging for food and actually was quiet for about 10 minutes or only making chirps, and closed his eyes for a while. It was sweet!

 

[Myia09]

Oh my gosh he is so cute! Congrats on you!

 

[SnowyShiloh]

So my baby Phoenix is probably a little girl! There's a sexing method that has you look at the feathers under the wings that are closest to the body. Girls have spots, boys don't. Phoenix's feathers look exactly like the girl picture. I'm going to get him DNA sexed here in the next couple days so we'll know for sure soon, but it's kind of fun to speculate.

Paul and my friend keep joking that we need to change the name to Phoenicia if Phoenix is a girl (pronounced like Felicia with an n instead of a c) but Phoenix will remain the name! I may change the spelling to Phoenyx if I'm feeling fancy but nothing else.

 

[SnowyShiloh]

I think Phoenix is getting interested in eating real food! When I went to give him his late night feeding, I was somewhat horrified to find poop on his beak. They learn to peck at things on the bottom of the cage and I suspect he saw the poop so pecked at that. Ew, and I hope he doesn't get sick from it (I cleaned out his mouth before feeding him), but I think it's a good developmental sign. I've been changing the paper in the nest box 3 times a day but I'm going to have to do it more often and also start using dish towels under the paper towels instead of aspen shavings because it wouldn't be good if he ate aspen shavings.

He's been flapping his wings so much! And climbing everything he can climb. I think he will take his first flight in the next few days. He's a bit of an early bloomer developmentally, which is interesting since he's ill and underweight.

I read about another baby tiel who has had crop problems his whole life. He's 7 weeks old and only 52 grams. Phoenix will be 4 weeks old on Sunday and is 63 grams. The other bird didn't take his first flight until yesterday and he doesn't even have all his feathers in yet and he has stress marks on his feathers. Phoenix seems much healthier than the other bird. Poor thing. Having said that, I hope Phoenix doesn't randomly die!!

 

[hartleybun]

the gender fairy is busy again! must make a change from all those bunnies! it's nice to open this thread and read good news.

 

[landi]

Aww bless i've not been in for a couple of days and was dreading what i might read but he/she is looking great they change so quickly would love to put a pic up putdont know how to add to this page so added to menu pics

 

[SnowyShiloh]

Oh, the little things that are exciting to a bird mom! I'm about to sprinkle some bird seed in the brooder for the first time for Phoenix to pick at

 

[JadeIcing]

Yay!