FINCHforum

Would putting a female (or male) Owl Finch in with our 30 day old hand fed owl fledgling help in the weaning process? The fledgling is in a room by himself on the second floor of the house because of the hand feeding and does not see or hear other birds. All the other birds are on the third floor. At this point we have not seen an interest by the fledgling to pick on spray millet or miracle meal that is in the cage. We have tried egg food in our hand or the cage once a day and no interest in that either at this point. The fledgling eats a lot when being hand fed which we are doing every three hours but not at night when we are sleeping.

The male and female are the parents but are young birds, aprox. 8 months old, and have never raised a chick on their own.

a_gouldian

Yes (he now needs another bird to show him how to eat. Owl finches wean 30-35 days, he was handfed, so he is already behind. Cut your feedings down to 3x a day while you do this. Make sure you cut your 3x feedings to 1/2 the amount. I think I cautioned you of this dependency earlier.

He will scream and fuss, but will be fine. Weaning is never easy for both parents and child.

Babs wrote: a_gouldian

Yes. Owl finches wean 30-35 days, he was handfed, so he is already behind. Cut your feedings down to 3x a day while you do this. Make sure you cut your 3x feedings to 1/2 the amount. I think I cautioned you of this dependency earlier.

He will scream and fuss, but will be fine. Weaning is never easy for both parents and child.

Thanks Babs. You are right, weaning is not easy. This little bird is so dependent on us. When we take him out of the cage for some social interaction and longer flight time all he wants to do is fly and land on open palms (or else land on a shoulder, shirt, whatever if the palm hand landing platform is not out, and cuddle/beg). If we put him on the floor across the room he hops over and then flies up to us. Cutting the food done so much makes us nervous.

a_gouldian

Your arent starving him, you are doing what his parents do in the wild, forcing him to forage at this age.

Ive handraised quite a few with my inexperienced gouldians and if you continue on formula you run the risk of yeast infection because he's a big boy now momma!

The formula can kill him this late in game if given too much for too long. Dont want to lose him now do you?

Babs wrote: a_gouldian

Your arent starving him, you are doing what his parents do in the wild, forcing him to forage at this age.

Ive handraised quite a few with my inexperienced gouldians and if you continue on formula you run the risk of yeast infection because he's a big boy now momma!

The formula can kill him this late in game if given too much for too long. Dont want to lose him now do you?

Definitely not! Tomorrow the female adult owl goes in with him and the feedings get reduced. I hope he picks it up quickly and naturally. He might not want to land on our hands and perch so much, but that he has a good healthy life is more important.

Babs wrote: a_gouldian

Your arent starving him, you are doing what his parents do in the wild, forcing him to forage at this age.

Ive handraised quite a few with my inexperienced gouldians and if you continue on formula you run the risk of yeast infection because he's a big boy now momma!

The formula can kill him this late in game if given too much for too long. Dont want to lose him now do you?

Mmm...being onest Babs I didn't even give that a thought about the yeast infection, very interesting you've mentioned about that,

There again though in fairness I don't really hand rear me birds so probably wouldn't of known about the yeast content,

Learn something new everyday

The one thing you need to be careful with is the youngster dehydrating if you withhold meals... I fed mine every 4 hours at that stage and left seed millet and dried egg food down... also pulled a zebra finch from a healthy pair to handfeed with it. Zebras wean way faster than owls and even if the owl baby was with the parents being fed some tend to be needy longer and not wean as fast. I never with held meals and let the youngster wean on it's own even with hookbills.

Raising one single baby can be difficult to wean since that one baby is bonding to you, adding a teacher bird or pulling more than one baby to feed at a time will help in the weaning process.

The yeast infection is not because you are handfeeding formula but because most birds pulled to hand feed whether they are abandoned, chilled or ill all run the risk of developing yeast infections and fungal, also the formula is mostly carbs and it can contribute to it... we typically advise folks handfeeding finches to also beak dose medistatin or nystatin 2 times a day.... age has nothing to do with it.

The formula will not kill it, the yeast or fungal will if the bird has yeast or fungal.

Also removing an adult from you cage into the baby cage may not work since the adult may stress and not feed. How many owls do you have, is it a colony or just a pair and are the nesting? Why did you end up feeding just one? Were there other clutch mates? As mentioned handfeds can take longer to wean.

I would take the youngster down to where the other owls are so he can hear and see them, set the baby cage next to you owl cage, provide him with seed and millet, dried egg food....

How often are you feeding him?

cindy

Gouldians wean about 40 days. By day 33, the last week of handfeeding, I always reduce the feedings to breakfast, lunch and dinner only. By that time the kids are eating the millet and already hulling seed, and are simply coming to me for rehydration 3x a day. Give or take a day, my kids are drinking by their wean date.
Although not everyone has the option, I always position the cage beside another cage with adults so they are watching the adults feed and drink. I think this part is very important.
Im not into dosing my finches with medications right out of the gate in their lives to prevent yeast. Why medicate? I simply encourage a strong & natural urge to forage while still giving them nutrients and hydration.
If I can keep them on schedule with weaning then I don't run the risk of a yeast infection by overfeeding and constantly keeping his crop full of formula. A FULL feeding every 3 hours at his age? No way that crop is fully emptying in between feedings. Thats a huge invitation for a yeast infection.

it is more of a prevention dosing with medistatin especially with tossed and ill babies, yeast and fungals are generally a secondary to another issue.... the bodies get chilled, organs start to shut down and yeast and fungal start to grow. Perfectly safe, more gentle than ACV which is acidic and given every feeding long term can cause gut irritation and can disrupt gut flora.

3 hours is to short of a time, stretch it to 4 to 5 hours...I always do morning, lunch, dinner and bedtime. Owl as mentioned are far more needy from my own observation of have a large colony, some chicks do beg and are fed by parents and cage mates longer. If using zebras or societies to foster also watch the fosters may quit feeding before baby owls wean...the wing begging tends to put some fosters off...especially zebras.

cindy a_gouldian

Indeed I can only base my experience to societies and gouldians.

owls are a bit tougher to wean in my opinion... societies, zebras and gouldians take to that seed, millet and dried egg food much faster. I have seen gouldians come out of the nest and start picking at food....

cindy

They are cute lilbuggers when they beg. I definitely think they outscream a gouldian for sure.;)

I have even place unweaned babies back into the colony so they can learn to eat as the others do, still pulling for feedings, keeping a close eye on the baby and how it interacted with the other..... just depends on how you have them set up and why you pulled the baby to begin with, the circumstances as to why you ended up hand feeding.

Babs wrote: cindy

They are cute lilbuggers when they beg. I definitely think they outscream a gouldian for sure.;)

they are loud and very persistent too