Finger Food

This Border chick needed to be hand fed even though it had never been hand fed before because its mother decided it is time to nest again.

To get him to eat, I put the Exact hand feeding formula on my finger and then tap it gently on the end of his beak. A few times and he is nibbling finger food!!

Mary's Hand Feeds The Three Little Pigs

My granddaughter Mary dropped by after school to work on some homework and once it was done, Granny gave her a canary hand feeding lesson! I remember my mother teaching me to hand feed with toothpicks when I was about her age.

First you have to get the birds to open their mouth. Mary gently brushes them under their chin with her finger to get them to open wide. Although these three little pigs are never really hungry, they are just the right size and temperament for her lesson. They respond to her gentle tickle.

I chose the larger chicks for the lesson because they will keep their mouth open longer and once they start eating, they will keep begging her for more food.

Small chicks in good shape, readily open even when the nest is giggled a bit, but you can feel pressure to get the food into their mouth quickly before they close up. The lesson above all else, must be fun and not intimidating!


Using a couple of toothpicks dipped in Kaytee Exact Hand Feeding Formula mixed with warm water, she delivers the food into the open mouth. At ten years old, she is more comfortable doing it this way then actually inserting the toothpicks straight into the beak as I would have done.

When I feed, I only put the toothpicks crosswise in the mouth when the bird is reluctant to open. In very small ones or those that really badly need feeding or they will likely die, the closer to death they are the more they refuse to open up. In that case, using just one toothpick to pry open their mouth, I rotate it to deliver a small amount of food. After a taste, they often open up unless they are in bad shape.



After just a couple of days and three supplemental feedings with Exact a day, the roller with the dark wing feathers that was losing out to his fat three little pigs siblings, now has a nice fat layer!

Three Little Pigs In A Nest Of Four

These three German roller chicks are aggressively hogging the food from the less aggressive fourth hatched chick.

They have not only beautiful rosy pink healthy skin tone but also notice the yellow fat layer deposited under the skin on the rump to the tail! When you see a fat layer on the rump, the chicks are doing very well!! Click on the photo for a better view.



The chick in the foreground with black feathers on each wing just like papa, was losing out. It did not have a fat layer and each day was proportionally smaller than its siblings! With a growing size and personality disadvantage, it is best to move the chick where it can compete more favorably with only one other chick of its size.

If the chick has been banded or like in this case has distinct dark wing feathers, you can easily identify the adopted chick even if it is not banded yet. In other cases, I give the moved chick a hair cut to shorten its downy fuzz on the head so that I can readily tell which chick was moved when I band the chicks.

Easy Sunflower Sprouts

In a short three weeks, when my first Stafford chicks were put in the weaning cage, I already have 50 babies in the various stages in the nests. Even with such high numbers, it is still too soon to start hatching chicks from my new German Roller male and the Borders like all the birds are still raising their first rounds. So it appears that soon every cage is going to reach capacity!

When the tasks gets taxing, I start using some labor saving methods. In addition to using frozen peas which can be stored in large quantities without spoiling, I like to sprout large quantities of black oil sunflower seeds.

In a large bowl, I place the sunflower seeds and rinse them a couple of times and then cover with tap water. After setting a couple of hours, I drain them and either leave in the original bowl or transfer to a colander. Later in the day, I rinse them again and again the next morning. After just 24 hours from soaking, small nutritious sprouts will appear. I then feed to birds with banded babies and refrigerate any extra. Right now, I am setting sunflower to sprout every other day.

Stafford Chicks Rally At Pea Party

Are you ready for the party?

When the first chick leaves the nest, I quarter hard boiled eggs and watch to see when each chicks nibbles on the egg. As soon as I see them take a bite, it is time to put them in the weaning cage. I want the chicks to stay on the floor and eat so until they are eating well, I do not put perches in the weaning cage. When given the opportunity to sit on high perches and beg to be fed, they will until they starve to death.


Numerous food dishes line the weaning cage floor. This is a dish of frozen peas which I thawed by putting them in hot tap water and some sprouted sunflower seeds.

They have only been the weaning cage a few hours and once one of them tried the peas, all want to join in for a PEA PARTY!

Note the full eye of the taller chick compared to the other chick. The squinting indicates some degree of dehydration and it is important to get him to take on some liquid, less he will progress to sleepy and puffy.

The slightly dehydrated chick started eating peas and his eyes immediately started widening.

Peas are offered to hens when their chicks are nearing banding size. They love to feed them to their chicks. Note the green color in the crop of the middle Stafford chick. Love that dark head and can't wait to see what kind of crest it will display!

Yellow Columbine

Burning Questions and Tips to Share

Locally-grown pesticide free spinach!

Beautiful pesticide free radishes!

TIPS

Sunday: Farmers Markets in our next of the woods, have a number of fresh items such as locally grown spinach and radishes. To freshen the radish tops, I cut them free from the radish and let them set awhile in some ice water.

Monday: Toni Schlott of Canada shared that his birds love non-medicated duck starter. He even adds it to his nestling food.

Tuesday: Connie Gahman, wrote: "My distributor, Lori Castle, brings the sidekick ingredients in from Versal-laga and mixes them by hand. We both worked on putting it together. Lori has more of the individual seeds than I do. Her email is: Birdiebitsnbites@aol.com We both ship products.

QUESTIONS

Thursday

Shawn asks about his new color canaries, can you have an isabel opal pastel?

Wednesday

1. What is non-medicated duck starter?

Sidekick Conditioning Seeds

About a month ago, when I was starting to make an experimental dry nestling food, I ordered the sidekick mix from wings. Connie Gahman, who breeds larges numbers of finches and some canaries, developed this house brand sidekick mix. Her e-mail is gahmanzoo@verizon.net and her web site is http://wings-custom-mixes.webs.com/.

Connie wrote: "My distributor, Lori Castle, brings the ingredients in from Versal-laga and mixes them by hand. We both worked on putting it together. Lori has more of the individual seeds than I do. Her email is:Birdiebitsnbites@aol.com We both ship products."

When given a choice, my birds regardless of their variety, prefer the sidekick mix to any seed offered including hulled hemp!! They even prefer it over egg containing nestling food!