Novice handrearing can be successful and very rewarding
Posted: Sun Mar 17, 2013 4:30 am
A bit of history ... Im a novice at raising a bird and want to pass what I have gone through onto others. I am not a bird breeder. I have some “rescued” birds and when I was given some nesting boxes, I placed them in the aviaries. The birds then did what birds do and next thing there were eggs then babies.
I think Entree may be a boy. I say “HE” as he “hearts” his wings, pins his eyes and dances for any beer bottle that sits around long enough for him to fall in love with it.
Entree was 2 days old when his HUGE sibling was found dead (full crop and appeared to have been squashed by parents). After removing his body the mother didn’t go back in the nest so the next day I expected the other tiny baby to be dead... He wasn’t. I took him out and his beak seemed to be stuck shut. He wasn’t begging for food or anything but looked a bit dry and wrinkled. I bent a small spoon ( found the info on the internet) and I forced a tiny hole and bit of water into the side of his beak a couple of times during the morning. I placed him in a shoe box on a “fluffy wheat slipper” that I had heated in the microwave to skin temperature. He was still alive that afternoon .. so I bought “ hand rearing mix” and did the same thing with a very weak mixture and every couple of hours I warmed up the slipper. At night I fed him at 10.30pm and then when I woke at 6am and during the day about every two hrs... Basically I had no idea what I was doing but it was working. He went to and from work with me in an esky bag and became our work mascot.
Expecting him to die, I didn’t tell my grown family about him until he was about two weeks old. He seemed to be thriving and yet it was not until this stage that his beak started to open slightly ... he still wasn’t begging to be fed. I took him to the vet at 3 weeks, thinking he might have brain damage or something as he couldn’t stand ( one leg kept sliding out to the side). They said he was showing slight signs of begging and gave me a .5ml syringe to feed him through the small space between his beaks and said to research “splayed legs” and I looked up “lock jaw in birds”. I started forming a narrow trough in his “wheat slipper” to hold his legs together while he was in his “nest”.
At about 5 weeks of age he was opening his mouth, but not really wide and I started feeding him again with a spoon ... he loved it until he started sneezing. So badly that he couldn’t feed as he would sneeze back out the food he was eating. The sneezing went all day, except for when he managed to sleep. Clear fluid started coming from his nostrils and this then started to be slightly green. His breathing had a “click” to it and the left hand airsack on his chest wasn’t expanding. Off to the vet again... (He is now an expensive bird). The vet said that he must have something irritating his sinuses and then noticed a small thread near one nostril. With tweezers he removed a 1 cm thread of “slipper fluff”. When wiping his eyes the vet found other fine strands inside his eyelids, wrapped around the front of the eyeball. Entree had been nibbling the fibres and we think inhaled some as well. The vet said that he probably had more fibres in his sinuses, causing the sneezing and infection, but was too young to anaesthetise to flush them out. If he survived to a larger size they could do it then. “Wheat slippers” were replaced by a sock with rice in it ( that was warmed regularly) covered by a microfiber cloth with paper towel over it and I had to learn to “crop feed” Entree to get passed the sneezing.
The vet also mentioned that he appeared to have an “underbite” with the point of the top beak coming down into the inside of the bottom beak. ... More research... Each day I gently held his top beak and applied a little pressure outwards and after a week the tip was JUST beginning to overhang the bottom beak.
At some time around here he broke his “thumb” at its base. It healed but has ended up pointing backwards.
He thrived. The sneezing reduced... I went back to the spoon... the sneezing returned along with nostril fluids .. I went back to the crop needle. This went on until the sneezing slowly diminished.
Entree still has only one side of his chest that expands as he breathes but this hasn’t stopped him. He has never been clipped and loves to zip around the house at full speed.
I heard a loud thud when he was about 18 weeks old and knew straight away it was bird head against glass. I found him at the base of the wall, motionless and limp, with feet curled up tight, eyes staring but he was BREATHING. I tried to stand him up but his feet wouldn’t uncurl and I immediately thought “a broken neck”. I sat and held him for an hour and slowly he began to come back around. It took about 3 days in all for him to be back to his normal self.... The curtains are now pulled halfway down at all times.
Entree is now 6 mths old and a self assured, inquisitive bird that is attempting to teach us how we need to communicate with him. He insists on a bath in the sink each morning,standing next to it and opening his wings until we run the water. He is very intelligent and strong minded but then we expected no less with what he has been through and his will to survive.
The only thing is that Entrees parents both have the coloured beak of the Indian ringneck but he has a dark top and bottom beak and is smaller in size.
I think Entree may be a boy. I say “HE” as he “hearts” his wings, pins his eyes and dances for any beer bottle that sits around long enough for him to fall in love with it.
Entree was 2 days old when his HUGE sibling was found dead (full crop and appeared to have been squashed by parents). After removing his body the mother didn’t go back in the nest so the next day I expected the other tiny baby to be dead... He wasn’t. I took him out and his beak seemed to be stuck shut. He wasn’t begging for food or anything but looked a bit dry and wrinkled. I bent a small spoon ( found the info on the internet) and I forced a tiny hole and bit of water into the side of his beak a couple of times during the morning. I placed him in a shoe box on a “fluffy wheat slipper” that I had heated in the microwave to skin temperature. He was still alive that afternoon .. so I bought “ hand rearing mix” and did the same thing with a very weak mixture and every couple of hours I warmed up the slipper. At night I fed him at 10.30pm and then when I woke at 6am and during the day about every two hrs... Basically I had no idea what I was doing but it was working. He went to and from work with me in an esky bag and became our work mascot.
Expecting him to die, I didn’t tell my grown family about him until he was about two weeks old. He seemed to be thriving and yet it was not until this stage that his beak started to open slightly ... he still wasn’t begging to be fed. I took him to the vet at 3 weeks, thinking he might have brain damage or something as he couldn’t stand ( one leg kept sliding out to the side). They said he was showing slight signs of begging and gave me a .5ml syringe to feed him through the small space between his beaks and said to research “splayed legs” and I looked up “lock jaw in birds”. I started forming a narrow trough in his “wheat slipper” to hold his legs together while he was in his “nest”.
At about 5 weeks of age he was opening his mouth, but not really wide and I started feeding him again with a spoon ... he loved it until he started sneezing. So badly that he couldn’t feed as he would sneeze back out the food he was eating. The sneezing went all day, except for when he managed to sleep. Clear fluid started coming from his nostrils and this then started to be slightly green. His breathing had a “click” to it and the left hand airsack on his chest wasn’t expanding. Off to the vet again... (He is now an expensive bird). The vet said that he must have something irritating his sinuses and then noticed a small thread near one nostril. With tweezers he removed a 1 cm thread of “slipper fluff”. When wiping his eyes the vet found other fine strands inside his eyelids, wrapped around the front of the eyeball. Entree had been nibbling the fibres and we think inhaled some as well. The vet said that he probably had more fibres in his sinuses, causing the sneezing and infection, but was too young to anaesthetise to flush them out. If he survived to a larger size they could do it then. “Wheat slippers” were replaced by a sock with rice in it ( that was warmed regularly) covered by a microfiber cloth with paper towel over it and I had to learn to “crop feed” Entree to get passed the sneezing.
The vet also mentioned that he appeared to have an “underbite” with the point of the top beak coming down into the inside of the bottom beak. ... More research... Each day I gently held his top beak and applied a little pressure outwards and after a week the tip was JUST beginning to overhang the bottom beak.
At some time around here he broke his “thumb” at its base. It healed but has ended up pointing backwards.
He thrived. The sneezing reduced... I went back to the spoon... the sneezing returned along with nostril fluids .. I went back to the crop needle. This went on until the sneezing slowly diminished.
Entree still has only one side of his chest that expands as he breathes but this hasn’t stopped him. He has never been clipped and loves to zip around the house at full speed.
I heard a loud thud when he was about 18 weeks old and knew straight away it was bird head against glass. I found him at the base of the wall, motionless and limp, with feet curled up tight, eyes staring but he was BREATHING. I tried to stand him up but his feet wouldn’t uncurl and I immediately thought “a broken neck”. I sat and held him for an hour and slowly he began to come back around. It took about 3 days in all for him to be back to his normal self.... The curtains are now pulled halfway down at all times.
Entree is now 6 mths old and a self assured, inquisitive bird that is attempting to teach us how we need to communicate with him. He insists on a bath in the sink each morning,standing next to it and opening his wings until we run the water. He is very intelligent and strong minded but then we expected no less with what he has been through and his will to survive.
The only thing is that Entrees parents both have the coloured beak of the Indian ringneck but he has a dark top and bottom beak and is smaller in size.