handfeeding

Question
well Chrys the thing is my mom has lots of parakeets and yesterday one of them threw out a little one my mom says its about 2 weeks old and the parents don't want to feed it anymore but he dosen't know how to eat on his own yet we aren't familiar with handfeeding all we have done was give his some water. my mom also mentioned for my to give it some boiled eggs or cearal but hes just not eating...i researched about handfeeding and i found out i need to buy that Exact formula thing but at the moment we aren't able to go so my mom decided to place the baby back in the cage to see if they'll try and feed it this time but i'm afraid they wont and that the baby will just die...what can i do ...is there any food at home that i can feed him? help please!  

Answer
Hi again, Annette.  I was thinking about something in your post.  You state your mom has lots of parakeets...might all these keets be in 1 big cage with the breeding keets?  If so, there could be another reason the baby was out of the nest.  Let me know.

Chrys


Hi, Annette.  Thanks for posting.

You're right...at 2 weeks of age, this baby needs to be handfed by a human until it can eat on it's own.  The parents may have tossed it out of the nest because there's something wrong with it or perhaps it was an accident (when they were going in/out of the nestbox, etc., depending on what type of nestbox is being used).  I've bred hundreds of keets and I've never known one to throw a baby out of the nest and with the type of nestboxes I use, a baby couldn't accidently be knocked out (I'm wondering what type of nest/nestbox you have for this pair).  

You really need to buy some Kaytee Exact handfeeding formula (or some other brand), but this is just part of the process.  In order to handfeed this baby, you'll need a handfeeding syringe or an eyedropper or something similar in order to get the food into the baby's crop.  Also, you have to learn how to handfeed (there's a right and wrong way), what temperature the food must be when fed to the baby, how much to feed, you'll need to keep the baby in a brooder of some sort (the baby will have to be kept at a certain temperature), etc., etc.  Read the material on my website to gain more knowledge about this and come back with any questions:
http://www.angelfire.com/falcon/birdinfo/index.html

Until you can get some handfeeding formula, which you need to do ASAP, you can use human liquid nutritional supplement, such as Ensure Plus or a store brand name (such as Wal Mart's Equate Plus brand...most major stores/pharmacies have their own brand of this type liquid), you can temporarily use human infant formula, or something like this.  DO NOT feed milk or dairy products...birds can't digest milk (they are lactose intolerant).  Worse case, you could feed honey mixed in warm water, but you can only do this for 1 or 2 feedings.  The baby needs the vitamins, minerals, and nutrition in baby parrot handfeeding formula.

All of the above isn't as easy as it may sound.  If the baby lives, it won't be ready to start eating other types of food until it is about 5-6 weeks old (at weaning time), so you have several weeks of feeding before s/he is able to be weaned.  It's beak won't be hard enough to start eating pellets or seed or other hard food until about 4-5 weeks old.  I talk about weaning on my website, too.  You need to be feeding this baby right away...it can't go for more than about 24 hours without sufficient nutrition.

I know you're going to have a lot of questions, so come back when you need to.

Chrys