Chick from blue crown and sun conure

Question
We have a pair of birds(by accident) each had lost their mates and we though it was both females left and so they would not be lonely we put them together. Well our Blue crown is a male and sun is a female. They are sooooo in love and they now have a chick and another that still might hatch. Now for my question. The sun female's upper beak is broke off very short and the vet says it will not grow back and since we have had her alittle over a year that is the case. Is this going to be a problem in feeding the chick(s), and will the dad(blue crown) help?? I don't want to take the chick if they can manage okay but I do not want to loose the chick either.

Answer
This is a very happy ending to a very sad story isn't it? I understand your concern about the beak too.  It might be worth looking into specialized avian vets who rebuild beak injuries like this, quite successfully.

In the meantime, keep an eye on the chick and try to get regular gram weights to monitor it's progress.  It must be a GRAM scale (not ounces).  By the time you see a change in ounces, the bird could have lost a dangerous percentage of it's weight.  

When the parents are out of the nest box, seal it and with a gloved hand (we use non-latex surgical gloves available at any drug store), quickly, but gently lift the baby, put it on the scale, record the weight and while you have the opportunity, replace soiled nesting materials and then replace the baby, quickly re opening the nest box for the parents.  

Try to get a weight every-other day.  A 5% loss of weight is serious enough to begin supplementing feedings yourself, so have your materials ready for this just in case.

Good luck and keep up the good work

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