3 day old Owl Finch

[a_gouldian]

Here is a video clip of our Owl Finch chick being fed today. 15 days old
https://youtu.be/QJWSDaFkvSw

[a_gouldian]

Our chick is 17 days old and still doing great!

[Stuart whiting]

Absolutely brilliant, now it's starting to look like a baby finch

Well done to you, yer doing very well

[Sally]

Are you going to try to keep this one tame? I find that my handfeds stay tame until they wean and are put with other birds of their species, and then they gradually revert to not trusting me any longer.

[a_gouldian]

Are you going to try to keep this one tame? I find that my handfeds stay tame until they wean and are put with other birds of their species, and then they gradually revert to not trusting me any longer.

I would like to. Any tips? It will be going in with other birds eventually. We do have an empty smaller flight cage that it will be going into and we are keeping in mind the imprinting 40 day issue and also he might need an older bird to watch how to eat seed, etc.

We are not sure if his parents will be available. They are in a large flight cage sitting on 6 eggs. The eggs should hatch in about a week or so. If they feed the new chicks then they won't be available. We could also put a male Gouldian in with him. So many decisions still to be made! We don't have any other Owl Finches other than his parents.

[Barbara]

Boy he is just adorable what great job bringing this little one up from just days old,Do you have society my society eat and go after any food dish I put in any bird not eating well I put in to with them and they learn real quick to eat there vegetables

[a_gouldian]

Boy he is just adorable what great job bringing this little one up from just days old,Do you have society my society eat and go after any food dish I put in any bird not eating well I put in to with them and they learn real quick to eat there vegetables

Yes we have 3 Societies but they are in another room from where the Owl Finch will be. We also have an 11 day old Gouldian chick with them at the moment. The Gouldian may end up in the brooder when the Owl Finch leaves it because we are doing supplemental hand feeding with the Gouldian chick now and the Societies may be laying eggs of their own in about a week.

[Sally]

I really don't know how to keep them tame, I've never been successful with it, but then I've always put them back in with birds, where they soon learn that they are a bird and need to fear the big monster that peers in their cage!

[a_gouldian]

Our Owl Finch chick is 19 days old today and we introduced him to perching after he was fed. He caught on in 30 - 60 seconds and was right at home on the perch. He quieted down immediately and was enjoying himself and looked very content. We will try to give him some perching time every time after feeding now.

[Sally]

Oh, I just want to hug him/her!! One thing you can do is offer a piece of a branch to perch on. Thinner than this perch, one that he can really grip with his feet. That is good exercise to develop those muscles. One of these days, he is going to take flight!

[Babs _Owner]

a_gouldian Sally

Good job on the sucessful handfeeding. He is adorable. Here is my handfed tame gouldian "Ham", she was handraised with 3 other brothers and weaned in the same cage. She is the only one who ended up tame. We are clueless as to why. I can put her in a cage with fearful finches, but she still stays tame. I would love to know the mystery to it as well. All my other handfed babies are fearful.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kpgS0tqOMMk

[a_gouldian]

We are also hand feeding a Gouldian now that is 13 days old. The Gouldian chick is so different from the owl chick. A lot more hyper and it's crop doesn't hold as much. It also occasionally regurgitates the formula, something the owl chick never did. We still don't know if the Gouldian chick will make it. We were having the Gouldian clutch fostered by Societies but they weren't being fed enough so we pulled the last survivor out at about 10 days old. The Gouldian chick has been a much more problematic feeder than the owl and I can understand why it wasn't eating enough. It doesn't have as much of a begging instinct as the owl chick and sometimes will not open it's mouth to be fed. It still is growing though and doesn't look sickly.

[a_gouldian]

a_gouldian Sally

Good job on the sucessful handfeeding. He is adorable. Here is my handfed tame gouldian "Ham", she was handraised with 3 other brothers and weaned in the same cage. She is the only one who ended up tame. We are clueless as to why. I can put her in a cage with fearful finches, but she still stays tame. I would love to know the mystery to it as well. All my other handfed babies are fearful.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kpgS0tqOMMk

You are lucky that she is still tame. I would love a tame finch. When we received our pair of Gouldians in Feb. they would eat out of my hand and perch on my hand. But when they had there first clutch (unsuccessfully) I stopped trying to hand feed them millet and romaine, and then they forgot that they used to do that.