melissasparrots
Rollerblading along the road
Avenue Veteran
Celebirdy of the Month
Mayor of the Avenue
Avenue Spotlight Award
Things that stand out as going wrong:
1. I had one apparently very healthy quaker baby drop dead for no apparent reason while I was cleaning the brooder. Necropsy showed a heart defect. I've raised over a couple dozen babies from that pair, so I don't think its bad genetics. Just bad luck for that chick. If he'd been sold unweaned (he was on about 3 feedings) the owners would have had a fairly traumatic experience. Most of those sorts of things will have shown themselves by the time the baby is weaned. So by purchasing weaned, not only do most breeders have a much better health guarantee, but the bird has also been in the world long enough for at least most congenetal issues to become apparent.
2. Splay legs and learning how to make a hobble to fix it.
3. Toes not in the right position and learning how to fix that.
4. A brooder that stopped heating consistenly and caused slow crops on day ones.
5. Parent parrotlets that overstretched the babies crop and figuring out how to get enough food into the bird but not have it go rotten sitting in the bottom of a flacid crop.
6. Baby swallowed a pine shaving on the eve of a major holiday when our emergency vets don't see birds. Parrotlet chick weight 11 grams when he did it. It took me a couple days to get it manipulated just right to get it out of him. Trying to keep him hydrated and then catching him up from lost growth time was a challenge. He made it though.
7. Babies pulled out of the nest with bacterial infections. Which after antibiotics turns into a fungal infection. So far in 25 years of doing this small time I've never had a chick get an infection after being pulled from the nest and only a couple times before pulling from the nest. Got a crash course in why its best to just spring for the culture and sensitivity right from the start rather than just settling for a gram stain to diagnose. You can't wait to try on a few different antibiotics meanwhile a bird is going down hill. You need to get the right drug the first try. At the very least a little more up front expense will save you by preventing multiple trips back and forth the vet, several weeks of drugs when you could have gotten it done in 10 days, and babies feeling icky longer than needed. Sometimes my vet needs to be told what I want him to do because more often than not he's happy prescribing after just a gram stain and thinks he's doing me a favor and saving me money. Not.
8. First flight and all that goes with that. Usually its directly into a wall, sliding down like some cartoon character and hitting the floor with a thud. I've personally never had one get hurt, but I have heard cracked beaks, brain injury and death from that.
9. Learning how to deal with the first independence phase and training to be gentle. My amazons can sometimes go through one heck of a push for independence at around weaning. Don't touch me, leave me alone, your too boring and old to bother with anymore. Most inexperienced hand-feeders don't have the skills to deal with that. They seem to be under the impression that buying unweaned they will get to shape the babies behavior, form a wonderful parent child bond and everything will be great all day long after that. Not. Baby will still at some point try to experiment with some new and not so desireable behaviors. Better to get that out of the way at the breeders than risk a bunch of hurt feelings and being sold to someone else again anyway.
10. Almost forgot-babies that for no apparent reason don't want to eat or have a lousy feeding response. I've had a few amazon babies that I fed so well when tiny that they got to be super lazy feeders. A couple of the girls even decided that regurgitating just swallowed food for a second tasting was fun, very self rewarding and thus habit forming not to mention messy. I can see someone inexperienced aspirating a baby or subjecting it to all sorts of vet visits trying to figure out whats wrong with it when really nothing is wrong. Not to mention if they turned to the internet message boards for help they'd be referred to a vet and likely given all sorts of advice to deal with a medical issue the bird doesn't have. I did have to learn that sometimes with some species letting them go empty between meals so they get a little hungry is a good thing. Some other species need every calorie they can get in order to reach full size. Just because I hand-raised a bunch of 'tiels, parrotlets and quakers didn't make me ready for all the little quirks that amazons and other species have. They are all different and I learn something new usually through my own mistakes any time I take on a new species. I don't sell unweaned because I can't imagine how it could possibly be better for the baby to go from someone experienced and familiar to someone not experienced. People will absolutely come out of the woodwork trying to convince me how experienced they are with hand-feeding and how nothing ever went wrong before so they can buy a baby from me unweaned. I'm not so concerned that nothing ever went wrong. I want to know how your going to deal with it when something does go wrong and that only really comes from experience. In many cases its a judgment call to go to the vet or deal at home. Is this baby dropping weight like crazy because its sick or is it just getting ready for its first flight? Only previous experience with that particular species teaches those sorts of things.
I'll post more if I think of them later. Ooops just remembered #11-ruptured air sack leaking air bubbles into the skin around the crop forcing formula into one small area of the crop and not emptying out of that and turning hard. Vet couldn't figure out what was wrong because he wasn't experienced with avian pediatrics and his old eyes wouldn't let him see the nearly microscopic air bubbles under the skin around the crop. Grams stain showed no bacterieal issue but baby was prescribed baytril just in case and because vet had no clue otherwise. Unfortunately, birds on medicine often feel icky because of the meds and don't eat as well or vomit. With babies needing food to grow, unecessarily medicating a baby just in case isn't always the best way to go. I ended up treating that one myself by poking a sterilized needle under the skin and squeezing the air out. Had to do that twice, plus a few more days for all the little bubbles to disipate and the baby needed plenty of TLC after to get caught up and not end up stunted. Have no idea how he ruptured an aircell sitting in a kleenex lined bowl. Baby was about 7 days old when he did that. I have to wonder if I over filled his crop a little bit and stretched the surrounding tissues too much. I can't see how that would rupture and air sack, but ????? I'll probably never know. I never did end up using the baytril on him. By far the huge majority of babies I've had with problems have survived. Its very rare for me to loose a chick.
Melissa
1. I had one apparently very healthy quaker baby drop dead for no apparent reason while I was cleaning the brooder. Necropsy showed a heart defect. I've raised over a couple dozen babies from that pair, so I don't think its bad genetics. Just bad luck for that chick. If he'd been sold unweaned (he was on about 3 feedings) the owners would have had a fairly traumatic experience. Most of those sorts of things will have shown themselves by the time the baby is weaned. So by purchasing weaned, not only do most breeders have a much better health guarantee, but the bird has also been in the world long enough for at least most congenetal issues to become apparent.
2. Splay legs and learning how to make a hobble to fix it.
3. Toes not in the right position and learning how to fix that.
4. A brooder that stopped heating consistenly and caused slow crops on day ones.
5. Parent parrotlets that overstretched the babies crop and figuring out how to get enough food into the bird but not have it go rotten sitting in the bottom of a flacid crop.
6. Baby swallowed a pine shaving on the eve of a major holiday when our emergency vets don't see birds. Parrotlet chick weight 11 grams when he did it. It took me a couple days to get it manipulated just right to get it out of him. Trying to keep him hydrated and then catching him up from lost growth time was a challenge. He made it though.
7. Babies pulled out of the nest with bacterial infections. Which after antibiotics turns into a fungal infection. So far in 25 years of doing this small time I've never had a chick get an infection after being pulled from the nest and only a couple times before pulling from the nest. Got a crash course in why its best to just spring for the culture and sensitivity right from the start rather than just settling for a gram stain to diagnose. You can't wait to try on a few different antibiotics meanwhile a bird is going down hill. You need to get the right drug the first try. At the very least a little more up front expense will save you by preventing multiple trips back and forth the vet, several weeks of drugs when you could have gotten it done in 10 days, and babies feeling icky longer than needed. Sometimes my vet needs to be told what I want him to do because more often than not he's happy prescribing after just a gram stain and thinks he's doing me a favor and saving me money. Not.
8. First flight and all that goes with that. Usually its directly into a wall, sliding down like some cartoon character and hitting the floor with a thud. I've personally never had one get hurt, but I have heard cracked beaks, brain injury and death from that.
9. Learning how to deal with the first independence phase and training to be gentle. My amazons can sometimes go through one heck of a push for independence at around weaning. Don't touch me, leave me alone, your too boring and old to bother with anymore. Most inexperienced hand-feeders don't have the skills to deal with that. They seem to be under the impression that buying unweaned they will get to shape the babies behavior, form a wonderful parent child bond and everything will be great all day long after that. Not. Baby will still at some point try to experiment with some new and not so desireable behaviors. Better to get that out of the way at the breeders than risk a bunch of hurt feelings and being sold to someone else again anyway.
10. Almost forgot-babies that for no apparent reason don't want to eat or have a lousy feeding response. I've had a few amazon babies that I fed so well when tiny that they got to be super lazy feeders. A couple of the girls even decided that regurgitating just swallowed food for a second tasting was fun, very self rewarding and thus habit forming not to mention messy. I can see someone inexperienced aspirating a baby or subjecting it to all sorts of vet visits trying to figure out whats wrong with it when really nothing is wrong. Not to mention if they turned to the internet message boards for help they'd be referred to a vet and likely given all sorts of advice to deal with a medical issue the bird doesn't have. I did have to learn that sometimes with some species letting them go empty between meals so they get a little hungry is a good thing. Some other species need every calorie they can get in order to reach full size. Just because I hand-raised a bunch of 'tiels, parrotlets and quakers didn't make me ready for all the little quirks that amazons and other species have. They are all different and I learn something new usually through my own mistakes any time I take on a new species. I don't sell unweaned because I can't imagine how it could possibly be better for the baby to go from someone experienced and familiar to someone not experienced. People will absolutely come out of the woodwork trying to convince me how experienced they are with hand-feeding and how nothing ever went wrong before so they can buy a baby from me unweaned. I'm not so concerned that nothing ever went wrong. I want to know how your going to deal with it when something does go wrong and that only really comes from experience. In many cases its a judgment call to go to the vet or deal at home. Is this baby dropping weight like crazy because its sick or is it just getting ready for its first flight? Only previous experience with that particular species teaches those sorts of things.
I'll post more if I think of them later. Ooops just remembered #11-ruptured air sack leaking air bubbles into the skin around the crop forcing formula into one small area of the crop and not emptying out of that and turning hard. Vet couldn't figure out what was wrong because he wasn't experienced with avian pediatrics and his old eyes wouldn't let him see the nearly microscopic air bubbles under the skin around the crop. Grams stain showed no bacterieal issue but baby was prescribed baytril just in case and because vet had no clue otherwise. Unfortunately, birds on medicine often feel icky because of the meds and don't eat as well or vomit. With babies needing food to grow, unecessarily medicating a baby just in case isn't always the best way to go. I ended up treating that one myself by poking a sterilized needle under the skin and squeezing the air out. Had to do that twice, plus a few more days for all the little bubbles to disipate and the baby needed plenty of TLC after to get caught up and not end up stunted. Have no idea how he ruptured an aircell sitting in a kleenex lined bowl. Baby was about 7 days old when he did that. I have to wonder if I over filled his crop a little bit and stretched the surrounding tissues too much. I can't see how that would rupture and air sack, but ????? I'll probably never know. I never did end up using the baytril on him. By far the huge majority of babies I've had with problems have survived. Its very rare for me to loose a chick.
Melissa
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