Tuesday, May 12, 2015

Columbus Fancy Baby Adopts Big Bird As Its Mother! Weaning Issues

When Momma Bird starting to lay her second clutch, I decided to wean her chicks. But this one refused to eat like the other four Columbus Fancy chicks in the weaning cage and instead it just watches them eat and after awhile, it started crying! What a pitiful sound!

So Big Bird decided to start hand feeding and even though it had never been hand fed before, it enthusiastically accepted its new Momma, Big Bird!

 It likes to perch on my arm as I offer CeDe Handfeeding Food!

When it eats, it like to flutter its wings!



When weaning it is a good idea to but all food on the floor and not to put any perches in until the chicks are eating well. I offer a smorgasbord of nestling food, dry CeDe Handfeeding food, soft white bread crumbs, quartered hard boiled egg, sprouted seed, dry porridge oatmeal, sunflower pieces, hulled hemp, and bee pollen.


The decision to hand feed at this stage should be limited to only the crying chick any chick that will even take a bit of anything will be fine.

If you start hand feeding a chick at this stage it will delay its weaning likely a couple of weeks!

3 comments:

Brian Rowe said...

Poor chicky is lucky to have a surrogate mother like you, Linda.

Peter Jaehrling said...

Hi Linda,
This is a question about roller canaries.
You see the bird singing, but no sound at all.
Any idea why ?
thanks
Peter

Linda Hogan said...

Hi Peter

The usual reason is air sac mites. You might try treating with Scatt or Ivomec. Do you hear any clicking?

Another reason might be thyroid function. Iodine is good for that.