BS"D
DCas:
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If you folks don't want to help that's fine, I can accept that graciously and look elsewhere for people more willing to tell and teach me what I might need to know that's been left out of what I've read so far. Being lectured is one thing, being told that what I am about to do should be ILLEGAL is quite another. All I'm trying to do is give a bird a good home.
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Making the assumption that people don't want to help is an error. Many of the folks who frequent this electronic forum are quite willing to give others the benefit of many years (in some cases decades, of experience). You need to understand that in 14 states in the USA currently (and 8 more with pending legislation) it is ILLEGAL to sell an unweaned psittaforme (any type of hook-beaked parrot) to any non-certified person. Punishments range from siezure of all birds on subject properties (in CA both the buyers & the sellers) to fines in the thousands of dollars as well as jail time of up to (in CA) 2 years. This legislation did not take place in a vacuum. There are thousands of horror stories of baby birds being killed by inept, innatentive, or just completely untrained "would-be" hand-feeders. Crops with hole burnt through the tissues, severe dehydration secondary to impaction due to insufficient fomula hydration, incorrect temperature, etc. I am certain that you get the idea. If you want to get an idea of what a baby macaw actually looks like when a neonate, see the thread titled:
Viridian Rose is Home! *Pictures*, in the Bird Talk section. This thread shows a seventeen day old Ara Chloroptera (Green & Red Macaw, or Greenwing in the US) neonate that I am rearing. Understand that I have > 40 years experience with the large Macaws, & have hand-reared literally hundreds of babies. To start with, at hatch most Macaws weigh less than 15 grammes, and are around the size of a quarter. Their oesophageal opening in their throat is about the size of a standard led on a cdrom drive, & of course their tracheal opening is right up next to it. Even day-one babies are extremely vigourous pumpers when trying to feed. Not only can this cause aspiration death (food going into the lungs), but even more likely is severe trauma to the tissues of the oral cavity caused by the babies aggressive pumping being uncontrolled & the distal point of the syringe being driven, repeatedly into the various structures. I will not list the plethora of things that could go wrong & cause suffering & death to a neonate, simply because this is not the place, & frankly, I don't think it would do a great deal of good. If one wishes to be a life companion to a psittazen, the first requirement is to put the needs of the psittazen first. We cage them, & control them, we are therefore responsible for providing for all of their life needs; emotional, physical, social & nutritional that rival those of a dependent primate infant. A tack that you might give consideration is asking a local avian veterinarian for a referral to an ethical breeder who might be willing to train you as a hand-feeder. This would have some very big advantages: 1. You would get the real "hands-on" experience that all of the electronic/analog chit-chat in the world cannot provide. 2. It would allow you to find out for certain if this is something that you really want to enter into. 3. Once you are trained & proficient, it is very likely that successful breeder might be willing to enter into an agreement to trade a baby that you desire for your hand-feeding services for x number of babies. Later on you could barter your services for (the never ending list of ) bird toys, & other things that the feathered ones need. In this manner you could do as you state, &
approaching neonate hand-feeding without any training will only result in pain, & in 14 states could also result in jail time or fines.