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Another Blue Crown baby

Written by George Sunday, 19 July 2009 19:00

A couple of days ago, our older pair of Blue Crowns (Joe and Shasta) hatched their first baby at our aviary. We are really excited about this. Shasta - is unique in a lot of ways. She has to be the most dedicated mom sitting on her eggs, for nothing can make her come out. We have tried all the tricks that we know, no amount of persuasion, distraction or even nudging will get her off her eggs.

So candling the eggs is not even an option and in this clutch she was sitting on 3 eggs. We have absolutely no idea if they are all good but regardless of that  - we are just ecstatic about this one baby. This has to be tough on the dad - who has to feed both the baby and mommy for she does not come out to eat as far as we know.

The baby is still in the nest box and the parents seems to be feeding him/her. Because this is their first set of babies with us - we are keeping a close eye on the parents and the baby - crossing our fingers that everything goes good.

All the other babies (5 suns and 1 blue crown) are doing good and look for some updated video and pictures on our front page.

 

Sad news....

Written by George Thursday, 09 July 2009 19:00

Last Sunday we had the opportunity to assist in the hatching of a Blue Crown baby - It was a very scary moment. We were cleaning cages, and for some reason Jodie decided to peek in the nest box of our younger pair of Blue Crowns - they were feeding a baby who was hatched on the 29th of June. To her surprise she saw a half hatched baby set aside by the parents and upon taking the baby felt that it was too cold. She was surprised to see the feet move and then we went to an overdrive - and through Jodie's delicate and expert procedures of removing dry half hatched shells, the baby was born. We were thrilled beyond belief.

Sadly after a few days, the baby did not make it. Jodie was blaming herself, for we both had to make a choice after the baby was born to hand feed from day one or put the baby back with the parents. We decided on hand-feeding for I thought that would give the baby the best chance to survive. Sometimes we are wrong - or it was just not meant to be. Either way we were both sad. We buried the baby next to our beloved 'MAX' and had to endure some tough questions from our 5 year old, who was crying and asking lots of questions.

After almost 4 days, we are almost back to normal, but the brooder providing me with chilling reminder of how the sweet baby was taken away from us. We are finding solace in hand-feeding a clutch of 5 suns and 1 blue crown. I cannot wait for them to grow up a little bit - so we can taken them out and play.

Blessed Again!!

Written by Jodie Sunday, 28 June 2009 19:00

Well, we have been blessed again!!  Yesterday our younger pair of Blue Crowns hatched their first baby of the clutch.  They are sitting on a clutch of 6 eggs.  This is their first fertile clutch since they were added to the aviary so now we have to wait and see how they are as parents.  Everybody keep your fingers crossed!

 

Upgrade of cages

Written by George Sunday, 28 June 2009 19:00

Well, George took the trip to Connecticut last weekend to bring back some new cages for the aviary that we had purchased.  He did have a safe trip so everything was good!  We have decided to upgrade the cages in our aviary as most of the cages our breeders were in were home-made cages and very hard to clean.  Not to mention that they really took up a lot of space in the aviary.  We purchased 2 sets of double stacking breeder cages and a large macaw cage.   Sunshine and Bubba and Ray and Rita were moved into the new cage and seem to be adjusting well.  Sunshine and Bubba definitely needed a larger cage.  Each of the cages is 40 x 30 inches (Total 40 x 68 inches tall)  so that was quite an increase from the small cage they had.  Sunshine and Bubba seem very  happy in their new cage and have lots of new toys to play with as they enjoy their rest after the last clutch of 5 babies.    We moved the Severe Macaws and the Amazons into the other double cage.  Both pairs seem to be much happier in this cage.  The next upgrade we are planning is for Max and Mollie our Harlequin Macaw pair.  We are also planning on a new nest box for Molly.  Will keep you updated and will post pictures of the new cages with our happy birds.

Baby News - Suns

Written by George Thursday, 18 June 2009 19:00

We have been blessed with all five of the sun conure eggs hatching from 'Sunshine' and 'Bubba'. We already pulled the first three for hand feeding so that the parents do not have to feed them. Feeding babies takes a lot out of them. They are going to be resting after this clutch and we believe it is a well earned rest! We are contacting people in our waiting list for these babies.

Our older two babies have fledged, and started to eat some soft food and picking on the pellets. They have started to play with the toys and getting introduced to the other pets in the house. They got their first introduction to the vacuum cleaner the other day :) so they are progressing really well.

Other news - Sam is still sitting tight on her eggs behind our living room couch. She is such a good bird. Max and Mollie are also on eggs. We are planning on getting some new cages this weekend. We will update about the trip after we are back.

 

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