Baby parakeet trouble

Question
hi!
i have 6 parakeets and 2 mated. they laid 4 eggs and all 4 hatched but
eventually ended up with 3 baby chicks. the babies are growing up and
had already grown their flight feathers and we take them out often to
play with them, but i found out that they still did not learn how to eat
seeds. their father still feeds them and i didnt seperate the female
and male so the female laid another egg.  she sits on it everyday but her
old baby chicks had not even learned how to eat seeds when they are
already about 6 weeks old. how do i help the baby chicks to start to eat
seeds without handfeeding them? is there anothher way? the female
doesnt really care about it when any of her babies go into the nestbox by
the way. please answer as soon as you can!
thanks!


Answer
Hi, Katelyn,

I found your post in the question pool this morning.  For some reason, the person you sent your post originally to could not answer.

When baby keet chicks leave the nesting box and go into the cage, daddy keet starts feeding them and teaches them how to eat on their own, maneuver about the cage, etc.  Baby birds progress at different speeds. Perhaps daddy is in the process of trying to teach them how to eat on their own.  If this is not happening, then something is amiss.  Once babies start leaving the nesting box, the female may go to nest again....this is normal unless you remove the nesting box.  

Katelyn, an all-seed diet is not healthy for your birds.  Try to "wean" the babies over to a more healthy, nutritious diet.  If you don't, their health, lifespan, behavior, and many other things will be affected.  This is an opportune time to do this if they are still in the process of weaning.  In fact, when a person doesn't handfeed offspring, the process of weaning, etc., by the parent birds takes longer.  If the babies start eating a proper diet, the adults will too and, thus, your bird's overall will be more healthy.  I know you have a link to my website that provides more information on diet.  www.birdchannel.com is also a good website.

If these babies have not yet been weaned by daddy, there's not much you can do to help them learn to eat on their own except to provide additional healthy, nutritious food for them to try.  Just keeping seed in the cage won't work and you can't force them to eat on their own.  Daddy keet will reduce and then stop feeding them when they are ready, which means the babies will have to start eating other foods or they won't survive.  Evidently, daddy doesn't think they are ready yet if he isn't weaning them.  Are your adult birds old enough to know what to do?  Are there other birds in the same cage with this pair and their offspring?  If so, this could be part of the problem.  If you want these babies to wean earlier, you'll need to pull them from the parents, handfeed them, and then wean them yourself.  When I pull keet babies and handfeed them, they are completely weaned and on their own at about 6 weeks of age (some take a week or 2 longer).

Chrys  

There will be a point when the female will not want the babies from this offspring in the nesting box or even in the same cage with the next clutch.  You will need to be observant enough to know when this point has been reached so you can be prepared to remove these offspring to their own separate cage.