Emergency Hand Raring

Hand raring a parrot is something I always wanted to do but knew it wasn't going to be easy so it has always been shelved in the too hard basket. Until unforeseen circumstances has forced me to learn how.

On Sunday morning I found one of my Bourke parrot chicks on the floor of the aviary dead. The other chick still alive in the nesting box, I gave the female the benefit of the doubt and hoped she would still look after the other chick. Unfortunately that afternoon I returned to find the other chick on the aviary floor (I presumed dead as it wasn't moving). I actually took about half an hour to go into the aviary to remove the chick to only find it alive!

I was totally unprepared to be looking after a helpless chick and was lucky that the chick had been fed recently having a full crop. I decided to go with a heat pack to to keep him warm, waking a couple of time during the night to reheat it. I was not expecting him to make it through the night but he did.

The next day I took him to work with me and pick up some parrot hand rearing formula. I fed him using a tea spoon bent into a flute and he ate greedily. I was expecting to have most issues with this part but he filled his crop quickly. 

He is only a week old today and he is healthy other than a red mark on his neck where the mother removed him from the nesting box. He seems to be a little survivor.