Babies! Now What?

[Urania]

I peeked in at the birds last night and one of the five eggs hatched! now two are hatched and one is cracking.

the bottom of our nesting box is not round. will that be a big problem? i read something about babies getting split legs or something like that.

also, the birds a mixture of seeds, dried tropical fruit and vegetables. it's called sun seed sunscription cockatiel formula. also they are getting a high protien supplement. is there anything that the birds need extra for feeding their young?

we've never had baby birds and this was a surprise for us! any advice that you seasoned bird breeders could share with us would be very helpful!

thanks!

[CrazyBirdLady]

Originally Posted by Urania

I peeked in at the birds last night and one of the five eggs hatched! now two are hatched and one is cracking.

the bottom of our nesting box is not round. will that be a big problem? i read something about babies getting slipt legs or something like that.

also, the birds a mixture of seeds, dired tropical fruit and vegetables. it's called sun seed sunscription cockatiel formula. also they are getting a high protien supplement. is there anything that the birds need extra for feeding their young?

we've never had baby birds and this was a surprise for us! any advice that you seasoned bird breeders could share with us would be very helpful!

thanks!

"the bottom of our nesting box is not round" I'm not sure what you mean by this. The nest box should have some sort of bedding in it to provide the chicks with a soft, but firm place to lay or else they could get what is referred to as "splayed legs". I use aspen shavings, but carefresh, palm fronds or even plain , shredded paper can be used. It should have been dugout somewhat by the mother to meet her standards. If you have no nesting material in there, please get some in there asap!
The chicks will hatch, most probably every other day, if all five are fertile. You might want to have handfeeding formula and hanfeeding supplies on hand and do some research if you have never done it as the size difference between a newly hatched chick and a 10-12 day old is tremendous and often, the youngest get squished under the pile of big chicks. Be prepared to pull the older chicks in this case as a two week old is a lot easier to feed than a 1 day old. In some cases, the parents manage perfectly feeding all chicks, but I warn you simply as a precaution.
Soft foods are great for the parents to be given while feeding young. Veggies, rice,beans & bird bread are good choices. I'm not sure what type of supplement you are referring to, but normally they don't need any type of supplement ( and especially anything put in their water is a catalyst for bacteria growth) if they are getting a well balanced diet.
Congrats on the surprise additions!

[Joel]

Ditto what MJ said and please line up somebody NOW to help ya (if needed) down the road with handfeeding. Don't wait till last minute or until an emergency arises, for the babies' sake.

[ZooKeeper04]

I am Urania's older sister-- just figured i mention it before you get confused.

we don't really know anybody that has raised birds by hand.
The parents didn't make a good nest to begin with. they had shredded paper and stuff to make a nest but they really didn't do much. So Urania made a good nest for them but Jasmine just pushed the middle around and the babies are laying on the bottom of the box. are they going to take care of these babies or are they not?

[Urania]

I took a picture of the "nest." I keep putting more bedding in, but she pushes it away.

[ZooKeeper04]

Here is a picture of Jasmine and Jake, the mommy and daddy. Jasmine is on the left Jake is on the right. What do you call their coloring...Jasmine's eyes are purple/red.

[CrazyBirdLady]

Originally Posted by ZooKeeper04

Here is a picture of Jasmine and Jake, the mommy and daddy. Jasmine is on the left Jake is on the right. What do you call their coloring...Jasmine's eyes are purple/red.

As for the bedding, keep putting some in. If you have to, lock her out of the box for a minute or two (a spatula works well to keep her out of nest box hole) and add more nesting material under what is already there. As quick as possible do this and let her back into the chicks.

Jasmin appears to be a Creamino, possibly with a violet factor considering the coloring of her rump or she could be blue series Australian Cinnamon, I can't tell without seeing her flights. If you can get me a different picture of her where I can see her rump coloring and flight feathers, I can't tell you better. Jake is a Dutch Blue. Australian cinnamon (or Pallid as they are also known) have plum colored eyes at birth, so if that chick shown on the right has plum eyes, it should be a male that looks just like his mother. Both chicks are blue series as they have white down.

[Urania]

Here's a better picture of Jasmine:

[CrazyBirdLady]

Jasmine is a Violet factor Blue series Australian Cinnamon (or Pallid). Unless Jake is split for cinnamon, all visual Cinnamon chicks (that look like her) will be male chicks.
She's a very pretty bird!

[grandma]

Have the parents not taken care of them yet?
When was the picture taken?