Posted: Mon Sep 24, 2007 10:31 pm Post subject: Not feeding young
One pair of my kakarikis (black eyes) is sitting on eggs for the third time last 2 times they had young they stopped feeding them after about a week. The last 2 time there were only 2 and then 1 fertile egg. This time there are 6 firtile eggs. So I would realy like them to survive. Any help to over come this would be great. I would place the eggs under another pair but I have no pairs laying at the moment.
I'm a cage bird newcommer, but have degrees in ecology and ornithology, and have read considerable material since getting a few birds.
Are these fairly young birds? I'm to understand that birds may have problems the first one or two times around.
Infertile eggs (inexperienced in the mating department) is common the first few go arounds. Sounds like they may have worked this out if you now have six fertle eggs.
Stop feeding young; this can happen the first few times around as the pair learns what it takes to succesfully raise a clutch. I'm given to understand that this can be a serious problem if the breeders were hand-fed. I.e. babies fed by people never went through the natural fledging a weaning process and don't realize it's the birds that are supposed to keep feeding the babies. Hand-fed or parent raised; this hopefully will work itself out as well, but takes longer for hand-fed parents.
Recommendations;
1) Time and patience; the birds should live to breed again.
2) Get a brooder (and possibly an incubator) and take on the challenge of hand-feeding.
2 times they had young they stopped feeding them after about a week.
So they do feed....
kakariki tend to be very tolerant to interferance to the nest....BUT if a keepers is checking on a young pair more than once a week, and then very beif...or does anything to cause insecurity in the nest or surrounding terrority....the parent can abandon the eggs/chicks.
Also issues as mentioned above with hand feed birds, espec if this has occured for several generations
Put both of these senaros together and one is asking for serious problems _________________ My Spelling is Not Incorrect...It's 'Creative'
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