06/06/2016
FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTIONS Part 2
FEEDING CHICKS FROM DAY ONE.
This is a general guide for a beginner, I don�t recommend a person to try their first handrearing experience on a bird so young, but as we know these things can happen.
With having chicks so young you need a very reliable heat source, one that stays at a constant temperature and can hold the heat of� 36.9 degrees. This should be a humid heat this is done by placing a small bowl of water in the brooder.
I feed birds this young on a small bent salt spoon other people use eyedroppers and small paintbrushes.
The first thing you should do when the chick hatches is clean the navel area where it has been attached to the yolk sac of the egg. You can use an Antibiotic powder (AUREOMYCIN ANTIBIOTIC POWDER) this can be applied with a cotton bud. You only have to do this once. Not cleaning this area can result in an infection. The antibiotic powder can be purchases from your vet.
Never attempt to aid hatching if you don�t know what you are doing.
Leave the chick for approx 8- 10 hours (depending on the species of bird) after hatching before giving the first feed. The reason for this is to enable the chick to absorb the rest of the yolk sac that the chick was feeding on while in the egg.
The first 2 feeds should consist of probotics and in lories and lorikeets glucose can be added. Then if you are using katies exact the food should consist of one part rearing food six part water. The feeding temperature is very important here and as noted before food should be 42 degrees. Remember food should not be thick the consistency should be watery.
You can leave you chick for 5-6 hours during the night if you have past the stage of the 2 probotic feeds and one food feed. Feeding for a newly hatched chick is between every 1� -2 hourly for the first 3 days. Increasing feed times � hourly intervals, as the chick gets older. Let the crop empty before giving the next feed
Keep a good level of hygiene in all aspects of handrearing. I use antibacterial tablets used to sterilize baby�s bottles to clean my feeding equipment. Boiled water poured over rearing untensils is another good way of sterilizing.
*Probotics are a form of electrolytes and are used to hydrate the newly hatched chick. This can be purchased from various pet shops, it is good to have on hand as they are useful first aid items for your birds in general.
FEEDING QUANTITIES
Feeding the right amount of food for the age of the bird is most important. Each feed should consist of a volume equivalent to 10-12% of the bird�s body weight.
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HOW DO I KNOW WHEN TO START THE WEANING PROCESS?
The chick will start to get funny and play with the food at feed time. A good sign that a bird is ready to start to go through the weaning is if you look at the wings of the developing chick, you will find blood in the developing feather shafts and they re still partly covered in wax. Once there is no more blood in the feather shafts and no more wax surrounding the feathers, then the chick is ready to start being weaned. Lorikeets can be weaned before this stage, they are born naturals and can feed themselves from quite a young age, but still like to offered fresh warm feeds at feed time. Some birds are difficult and weaning turns into a long process, depending on the bird. Lorikeets would be the easiest and cockatiels one of the difficult ones, from my own experiences.
WEANING PARROTS
Offer food at different parts of the cage or place where it is easy for the bird to see and get to. Millet spray, apples, oranges, soaked vogels bread and greens are a good tempter to get the birds interest. For a while the chick may pull and nibble and not eat much at all, then all of a sudden it happens. The chicks will still beg for you to feed, keep in mind you should be still feeding them 3 times a day at this point. Once you see they are getting the idea and food is being eaten, you can lower the feeds to 2 times daily until they have got the idea to do it on their own. Weaning parrots can take from 2 weeks to 2 months depending on size. I also soak and sprout seed for the young I found it helps them to get the idea on how to hull the seeds, as they are a lot softer to eat.
WEANING LORIKEETS
Make food available near a perch. Lorikeets can eat for themselves from 5-7 weeks old. You still must offer warm food and at the same feed times, but lory chicks take great delight in lapping the wet mix it comes naturally to them. Watch they don�t gorge themselves and over eat. I usually start the weaning process with lorikeets at 6/7 weeks old. Honey water, apples, pears, a quickly dunked malt biscuit, dandelion and soaked bread in honey water tempts any young lorikeet to have a nibble including wet mix offered warm 3 times daily. Millet and soaked and sprouted seed is also great to help wean your lorikeets. Lorikeets at 5- 6 weeks of age will take approximately a week to wean. They learn faster if they are in a group of slightly different ages as they copy each other.
