A pink booger, a black spot

[MisterGribs]

lovezebs is the spaghetti cooked?

A paintbrush takes longer than a syringe, but you can get it deeper into his throat, and it seems more comfortable.

[Babs _Owner]

MisterGribs

Honey dont worry about the bubble. Its okay. Pat pat. He's just swallowing air while he eats. Over anxious feeders sometime end up with more air than food.

Like Elana said, noooooo burping. He will burp it out on his own with little tiny finchie belches that only finches and pixies and fairies can hear. *giggle*

Heres Debbies amazing thread on the growth of a gouldian she hand fed. You can judge the proper crop size per the days old perfectly with these pictures. **notice the big air bubble in the 6th picture? It happens.


http://www.finchforum.com/viewtopic.php?f=5&t=25357

[lovezebs]

MisterGribs

No, not cooked, just softened a bit under boiling water, but not enough that the little one can bite it and choke on it.

I have also used the tiny tip of a tooth pick.

[MisterGribs]

Babs lovezebs Thanks you guys, he was fine after all! Babs, I stretched his crop a little. I fed him until he stopped begging and it seems to have done the trick.
I noticed the food stays warm longer if you make an overkill amount, lol.

He gets less air with the paintbrush, I think, good to know it can't harm him though.

What would I do without you guys??

[lovezebs]

MisterGribs

Glad babsie is ok...

If you put your little dish of baby food in a container of hot water, it will keep it nice and warm.

[MisterGribs]

He's still going strong! The crop now covers the back of his neck as well. Last night he got a little unresponsive, which worried me, but I guess he just wanted to sleep, lol. He'll be 3 days old today!

[Babs _Owner]

MisterGribs

3 days has gone by fast! He should be noticeably larger and easier to feed now.

I hope you are getting some sleep. If you are giving him plenty of food during the day and a heavy feed at bedtime, you should be able to get a nice 6 hour sleep in without any problem.

And about sometime today or tomorrow he should start getting his voice. Don't be alarmed if at first it sounds a bit like "clicking". Soon it will be by 5-7 days

[MisterGribs]

Babs he has, he's been clicking since yesterday, but you had warned me not to panic before, so I managed not to lose my mind.

The second egg pipped today, soon I'll have two babies!

Last night after 22:00 I fed every two hours. I managed to get enough sleep. Since the chick (his name is Itu, it means a sprout) still has black spot after all, I wanna spoil him hard to give him the best chance.

His parents are not at all interested, and the father is even alarmed by the sight of a wriggling bab, but Scrambles and Weeb seem interested and fluff their heads up at him.

[lovezebs]

MisterGribs

Well another day down, and Itu is still with us...

You mention clicking....
When are you hearing this clicking?
Is it when he opens his mouth to be fed, or when he's breathing?

Just a curious question, how interested in him are Scrambles and Weeb?
Are they interested enough to feed and care for him?

[Sally]

Sounds like you are doing a great job handfeeding, it is not easy! I always found that after those first few days, the babies could go through the night for at least 6 hours without food, so I could get some sleep.

[MisterGribs]

lovezebs Sally Babs

When the second chick, a fluffy little darling we named Jyvä (YOU-vha, it means a kernel or grain) hatched, no black spot (this chick will still be a carrier, despite not having the black spot) we saw that Vilu was incubating the baby, but not feeding.

Because I didn't trust myself to do as good a job caring for babies as their real mother, I left the new baby be rather than adding it to the brooder. Hoping she would catch on better with two babies begging, I added Itu to the nest right away in place of the unfertilized egg, so she would believe he hatched from there. Vilu accepted him happily and I was relieved. Luckily she was very tolerant and let me feed the babies in the nest, and then would go back to incubating as soon as I was done.

But then, the very first shift Hiro took watching the babies while Vilu went to feed and bathe.. He attacked them! He attacked his own babs... Luckily I discovered the murder in progress because I wanted to see if Vilu had started feeding them yet, and caught him in the act, salvaging one of the babies. Heta believes that he did it in order to mate again. Heta, Vilu and I were all VERY upset. Hiro has probably been the culprit at chewing Itu's pip open, and tossing the previous babies.

Itu was sadly killed. He looked very smashed and flat. Jyvä the little popcorn kernel has been bitten horribly in the face. You can clearly see a V mark where he clamped down hard on her tiny head. It bled horribly, VERY narrowly missed her eye and cranial fissure, and the whole top of her head was turning bright red under the skin as I watched.

I quickly applied some pressure and a frozen Q tip to stop the bleed from getting worse, thankfully on time, but she has a black eye now and he tore out over half of her beautiful feathers. She lost nearly a full drop of blood, A LOT if you're a day old zebra chick. I pumped her full of formula and honey with a bit of ACV and lots and lots of nice, warm water a teeny tiny minuscule percentage drop at a time the corner of her mouth because she was very pale, limp, cold, in shock and couldn't even lift her head to beg. With the softest paintbrush I could find, I massaged her all over to keep her alert so she would swallow.

Lots of times, I thought she was already dead, and then she would take another little breath. It took me almost an hour and a half to get any visible amount of liquid in her crop, and 20 horrible, agonizing minutes before I saw that little dewdrop in her crop disappear into her abdomen and her skin went pink.

It was touch and go, but she finally recovered, and the hematoma covering the top of her head subsided and turned into a painful looking little bruise clot.. Thankfully there is no swelling, and she is begging and eating ferociously, pooping everywhere, and moving in and out of the warmth in the brooder as she pleases.

How horrible.. I'm not sure she will make it, because sometimes they seem to be doing great and then just slip away when your back is turned.

If I had believed in myself, had more faith and confidence, made better decisions maybe, poor Itu would still be with us, and I may have snatched up Jyvä as well and had them both turn out just fine!!

Anyone that may be reading this and finding yourself with an abandoned, sick, or mistreated baby bird on your hands, never doubt yourself! If nothing is going wrong, stay the course! As long as you try hard enough and care about something enough, you can reasonably do well. If it's not broken, don't fix it! It's not worth the risk to change tactics when it's all going smoothly, and I wish I'd had a stronger bird-dad morale.

[MisterGribs]

Happy little popcorn puff before the vicious attack..

And after.

[MisterGribs]

Here she is now, back to her usual energy, bless her little cotton socks. Her poor little eye, it's fit to break my wee heart

Heta put some soft, fluffy friends in the brooder for her so she will have someone to cuddle and won't be lonely, oh my gosh the poor dear, it's killing me.

[lovezebs]

MisterGribs

Oh my god, a day of tragedy, murder, and survival.

I am so so sorry about poor little Itu.... I was getting attached to that little guy just through your posts.

Thankfully the tiny tot at least survived, even if injured.

This is so similar to my experience with the little Zebra and Society finch babies just recently, that it's just uncanny.

Same senerio...

Next time your girlie is on eggs, I would remove Daddy dearest from the cage. You might find, that Mum miğht do a lot better on her own without him hovering over her like the vulture of doom.

I hope the little one survives.

[MisterGribs]

lovezebs gosh, our birds making poor life choices lately! I hope she survives too.

Not taking any chances with this one! I'm so tired of losing babies!
I've been slowly stealing the nest a piece at a time... in light of the congenital black spot, I won't be letting my zebras nest again! Any little eggies are destined to become food for someone, and not sad little dead baby birds.

Too bad I don't have space for some societies, I could name them Nanny and Butler, and they'd be life savers.