FINCHforum

Okay, yet another question. I noticed yesterday when feeding my oldest chick, there seemed to be a slight amount of what I can only describe as foam. It was a bit lighter than the formula, but not white. When I went to feed him later, I checked again and it was gone. It has not reappeared since 6pm last night. When I fed them this morning, I noticed one of my "twins" had the same looking foam. My husband is going to check again during their next feeding. It looks like some spit was swallowed with the food. They are just about ready to start eating spray millet and soaked seed too. Should I be concerned? We are going to reintroduce applesauce to be safe, but we had seen something about apple cider vinegar. Anyone ever tried this technique? I am a little leary to give that to them. What should we do?

Is it just little air bubbles inside the crop? If they appear active, healthy, and their little poops look the same as they usually do, I would not be concerned. When mine got sick, the first thing I noticed was a very white, chalky appearing diahrrea all over their bottoms, which I wiped off with a damp kleenex every time I fed. As they got better, their little bums were cleaner, till there was no poop stuck to their bottoms at all.

I can't remember, are these fledglings? They aren't ready for solid, real food till after they have fledged. And the first food my fledglings usually try is the eggfood and spray millet, followed by soaked seed.

The babies range from 18-20 days old. They are almost fully feathered, but still have a little ways to go. Yes, there are the tiny air bubbles in the "foam." I am thinking it is nothing really, but I wanted to ask. We were not going to offer the babies anything new to eat until the end of the weekend. They still take the formula just fine, so we were just going to offer them the spray millet by hand at first. When you say eggfood, do you mean cooked egg, or the crushed shells we were feeding the parents?

I mean homemade eggfood. I hardboil eggs, mash them shell and all, then I add dry ingredients, as my birds don't like wet eggs. I do 6 eggs at a time, then add maybe 1/2 cup commercial dry eggfood, 1/2 cup dry nestling food, 1/2 cup yellow cornmeal. Just keep adding and stirring with a fork till it is nice and crumbly. I also add cod liver oil and wheatgerm oil (1 tsp for each 4 eggs) to the eggs and mix well before I start adding dry ingredients, but for little babies, I probably wouldn't add those two items to start. My babies are used to these oils, as the parents eat the eggfood and then feed it to babies, but yours would not be used to the oils.

When I had the handfed Stars a while back, they tried spray millet first, I think, then the eggfood. this was all after fledging. Eggfood is full of protein, which they need, and easy for them to eat--nature's perfect food.

Some people don't let their babies (or parents feeding babies) have eggfood that has the shell mashed up in it--they just do the peeled hardboiled eggs mashed up. They say you could have problems with pieces of shell piercing the crop, but I have never had a problem.

About the egg shell.
My societies were cracking the cuttlebone, and eating the chips. So if your finches eat their cuttlebone by cracking off chips, there would not be any difference than them eating egg shells. They would grind up either in their beaks till it is a coarse powder that they can swallow.

An alternative is to go to a kitchen store an buy a small motar and pessel and grind up the egg shells into power, as fine as you want to make it. Then mix that egg shell powder into the egg mix.


Sally
Why do you add the oils?

ac12 -There is a breeder in the Texas Gulf area who posts a lot on the African finch group, and he detailed his feeding routine. I am trying it out, but haven't been doing it long enough to make any decision about it. He breeds a lot of species, and he has parent-raised CBs without live food--you know that appeals to me!

He says the cod liver oil is an excellent source of vitamin D3, and the wheat germ oil is a source of vitamin E. Vitamin D3 is needed for them to utilize the calcium they eat, and vitamin E is the breeding vitamin. Makes the mashed egg even more good for them, but I have to add more dry ingredients to the mix as my birds won't eat eggfood that is too wet. He also feeds veggies (broccoli, cauliflower with carrot mix, and greens).

mrshorn - I am supplemental feeding 5 BCCB babies right now, they are different ages but all within about 6-8 days of age I think, as some of them have opened their eyes, others still closed. Anyway, this morning, I noticed little bubbles on one of the crops. These babies are healthy so far, so all seems to be normal.

sally- I am going to try that eggfood recipe this weekend. When the babies were still with the parents, I would get up early everyday to scramble eggs with the shell before work. They also had a "spinach, broccoli, cauliflower salad" with sun drops and Missing Link that was given to me by my vet. I noticed they always picked out the shell. They (the adults) knew/know the salad is coming in the morning, and they dance, chirp and fly around in anticipation. They will watch as I chop up the spinach too. I hope all goes well with your BCCB babies. They are beautiful birds. The hubby an I were eyeballing some BCCBs the other day, but now is so not a good time. As far as the "foam," it seems to come and go with all of them, and they are perfectly healthy otherwise. I do think it is related to the tiny air bubbles. Still feeding them applesauce to be on the safe side.