Cockatiel Egg and Chick Thread

[hartleybun]

squeee!anic:anic::inlove:

 

[SnowyShiloh]

I'm so happy and so relieved everything went well! And just about bursting with pride for Arthur and Poppet! :toast: I just checked 2 hours ago and there weren't even holes in the shell (just the peck marks from within). I was gettin' a little worried because I read if there aren't light pip marks (not going through the whole shell) around 1/4 of the egg within 24 hours, the chick is in trouble. I hadn't picked up the egg since last night so didn't know how far around the pip marks were. So I washed my hands really well and found Paul's camera (which still had functioning batteries, woohoo!), opened the nest box expecting to find an egg... and instead, found an empty shell! Poppet moved over a bit and the baby peeped out from under her He's all fluffy and wiggly and chirping up a storm! I only watched for a minute or so, but I got to see her feed him! He bobbed up and down really fast and flapped his tiny wings and chirped loudly when she fed him. It turns out that all that fast chirping I heard earlier was her feeding him! Sometimes they don't feed the babies for 8 hours or so, so she's doing GREAT! Such a great mommy. I was crying like a baby

Without further ado, I present our little baby birdy!

Here his beak is open mid chirp:

Isn't he the cutest little ugly thing ever? :big kiss: I can tell he's not a Lutino like Poppet because his eyes are black, not red. Also he's not a whiteface (which means no yellow face or orange cheeks) and won't be white when he grows up because his down is yellow. All the other colorations start out with yellow down like his

We are trying to think up a name for him! We were going to name him Rex after the dinosaur from Toy Story (we LOVE Toy Story and just saw the third one yesterday and baby birds look like dinosaurs), but he hatched on the summer solstice. The longest day of the year Since we're in Fairbanks, Alaska, that means there will be no dark today. What a great day to hatch, huh? I think he needs a solstice or summery/sunny name. Any ideas?

3 more eggs to go :shock:

 

[NorthernAutumn]

Congrats, birdie ma!

http://nameberry.com/blog/2009/06/28/summer-baby-names/
http://youcantcallitit.com/2008/06/20/summer-solstice/

How about Julius? July, orange julius, Julius Caeser, etc.
Horus, God of light, sounds pretty good too

He is one ugly little fuzzball! I'm pretty sure he'll look handsome soon though

When do his eyes open?

 

[myLoki]

How exciting!!! I love this thread!

t.

 

[luvthempigs]

:clapping: Welcome to the world baby birdie &

Congratulations!:stork:

 

[BooLette]

Oh my goodness! This thread had me on the edge of my seat the entire time I was reading it!

I actually got choked up when you said he hatched!

I LOVE THIS THREAD!!!!:yahoo:

 

[SnowyShiloh]

Thanks for the kind replies, everyone! I'm over the moon. Paul just got home and we looked at the baby again. He has a nice, full crop, which means he's being fed well! Way to go, mama and daddy! They both spent most of the afternoon in the nest box with the baby.

Also, I found the perfect name for him! Kiran It's Sanskrit/Hindi and means "sunbeam." It also means "dust" which is very appropriate since cockatiels are incredibly dusty birds. It is pronounced KEER-in and is a boy or a girl name, which is nice since we don't know if the baby is a boy or a girl. I'm going to spell it Kieran though so it's a bit more phonetic. His nickname, of course, is already Kiki/Kiery. Seems a little more fitting for such a tiny baby.

Here are pictures of Kieran with Arthur and Poppet- Arthur was out of the nest box when we opened it up, and he had to come make sure we were being nice to his baby! In the first picture, the baby is under Poppet's tail- you can kinda see his yellow fuzz sticking out on the right side of her at the base of her tail, between her and Arthur's face.

"Hi baby!"

This is just a close up of the previous picture:

 

[hartleybun]

:inlove:cuteness overload - how on earth do you guys cope??? and dont the parents look soooo proud too!!

 

[SnowyShiloh]

I got to hold Kieran Poppet was taking a break from the nest box and I was spraying her with water from a spray bottle (it's important so the other eggs get a bit of humidity), which she loves, but Arthur popped out of the nest box to see what I was doing. I seized my chance and gently picked Kieran up... he chirped at me! He's so fluffy and adorable and looks well fed I swear he looks bigger already, too big to fit in the egg! I just held him for 30 seconds or so and then put him back. Not to worry, me handling the chicks won't make the parents abandon them or anything.

I am worried though. After I cleaned the cage papers, Arthur pooped some pretty runny droppings. If he has some sort of infection, Kieran will get sick too. As you can imagine, newly hatched chicks aren't really able to fight off bacteria! Once last year they got sick with runny poop and I took them to the vet several times, medicine didn't work... turns out it was the food. Their bag of pellets hadn't expired yet, but it had started to go bad. When I replaced the bag of food, they were better within days. As soon as the pet store opens tomorrow I'm going to go buy a new bag of food, just in case! And I'm going to worry worry worry my heart out until I know Kieran will be okay! Wish the pet store was open right now but it's 4 am. I would be crushed if he died and so would Arthur and Poppet. I don't think Kieran's pooped yet (it takes a bit of time for a baby bird to poop the first time), but when he does and I can see what it looks like, I'll feel a bit better. Ah, the joys of parenthood: looking at poop.

 

[SnowyShiloh]

Kieran is still doing his baby bird thing! I picked him up again to check him and he pooped on me. I, of course, took a picture of the poop to post on the bird forum since I'm worried about the parents' poop. He has a full crop and his little butt is clean. He looks way too big to fit into an egg! He's a little quieter than he was yesterday, maybe because he's all hatched and fed now. Hopefully all is well in baby bird land.

 

[SnowyShiloh]

WOOHOO!!!! The second egg is hatching! I'm guessing Kieran's sibling will be here later today I picked up the eggs to candle them because I haven't done it in several days and it's important to remove any dead eggs. Good news is all 3 other eggs are doing great, and like I said, one of them is hatching I can hear his little chirps and feel him moving around in the egg! I got a quick video (to see if the chirps could be heard) and took a couple pictures of the crack marks.

I didn't expect the second egg to hatch until like Friday, these babies are overachievers! This egg was laid on either June 7th or 8th, which means it's only been about 16 days. Apparently they can hatch faster if they're kept really warm, and Arthur and Poppet have sat on the eggs perfectly. The egg that died was laid between Kieran and this egg, so I'm guessing if that egg had lived, we would have had a baby every day for 3 days. Normally eggs hatch every other day. Talk about a lot of stress for new bird parents!

I'm going to go upload the pictures now And I can't wait to meet little Teddy.

 

[SnowyShiloh]

Here is the picture of the egg! You can see where Teddy is pipping from the inside

Also, bonus- it turns out that Photobucket WAS uploading my videos, even though it said it wasn't. Here's Kieran with Poppet earlier.





I'm uploading the video of the hatching egg right now. The video doesn't look like much, but you can hear him chirping away. I'll post that too of course

And here's the new chick chirping in his egg! Turn up your speakers so you can hear him I know the video is fuzzy, but I was trying to get close enough so you could hear him.

 

[hartleybun]

:thud:more cuteness! the next box looks so clean! is this you or the proud parents?

 

[SnowyShiloh]

Donna, the parents don't poop in the nest box. They hold it in until they get out. Let me tell you, that leads to some GIANT bird poop! Especially from Poppet, who will stay in the nest box for 8 hours at a time, until Arthur essentially kicks her out so she'll go get some food and water. She's been coming out more today, I assume since she literally is eating for 2 now, but she goes right back to the nest box.

The chick is pooping in the nest box, but they're super tiny little poops. As he gets bigger, he'll back up to the wall and poop around the periphery of the nest box so as not to soil where he and his siblings will be sitting. Smart, huh? I'll also start cleaning the nest box once we have more babies who are pooping more

 

[SnowyShiloh]

Me, yet again... Last night I was all worried about Kieran because of Arthur's poop and today I was a bit worried because of the color of Kieran's poop and because he was chirping less. I e-mailed a very experienced breeder, she replied that his poop looks perfect and it's completely normal for chicks to quiet down after the first day, and that they should only really chirp when being fed (or stimulated somehow). So everything's good PHEWWWWW. We got a new bag of bird food too. I'd imagine if there's anything bacterial going on with the parents, it will show in the chicks pretty soon. I'm fanatical about hygiene though!

 

[SnowyShiloh]

Look who's here

Meet Teddy! I just went and took a peek, and found little Teddy, fresh from the egg! He will be all fluffy here pretty soon. I hope Arthur and Poppet cope with 2 babies well!

2 eggs left

 

[Happi Bun]

This is so exciting!! Beautiful parents too.
The babies are adorable in a alien looking kind of way.

 

[SOOOSKA]

Shiloh, this is so exciting. Those babies ars so cute, well they will be soon. lol

I listened to the chirping, that was exciting. Geez I get excited seeing the baby birds in my backyard, I can just imagine what you must be feeling.

I look forward to watching them grow.

Susan

 

[missyscove]

They're cute in that awkward, ugly way... a face only a mother and a forum of people who get excited about poop could love.

 

[Pipp]

inkbouce: