Posted: Tue Oct 18, 2011 5:33 am Post subject: Solo parenting
I have a 3year old hand reared hen kakariki with her first clutch of babies. There are 5, but her mate has died two days ago and I'm wondering if she will be able to rear them alone. The babies are approx 2 weeks old. I would rather not hand rear them. I am giving her greens, soaked bread soaked seed, sprouts etc. What type of protein would be best for them? They are in an outdoor aviary.
Any other advise on helping her rear them?
Hand reared chick in NZ?
Kakariki are devoted parents.....she will cope fine...keep an eye forabout the time the chicks devalope there green adult feathers, she may want to go to nest again....if so need a sec nesting box, if no 2nd nesting box she may or may not gert terroritial with the chicks and need to remove them.
If need to remove the a spare male, over 12 months will finish raising them nps.
I suggest get another mature male now, good time to pair them up, otherwise there is a good chance it will be difficult to do so later...
There is a good chance she will let the male feed the chicks...if not she will just make him hang around for a couple weeks..
worst senio she will attack him, so remove him for now...wait time she starts going to nest again..if she does, and move the chicks in with the male
I have 1/2 doz or so spare males avalible here, and all experianced in uncling/weaning chicks off.
Diet read the "what do you feed...." thread
Get rid of the soaked bread..its refined, stripped, processed what flour with added sugars and crap....waste of bread ...
basically chopp up all the kumura, potao peelings, pumpkin skins, bean end, cali and broccolli stems etc from your own food pre....add chopped puha, pasley, nastersions, sliverbeat and beet root leaves .stems, choppe beet root. throw in frozen sweet corn and peas, they like minted peas.......
separeate get a cleaver and chop up the left over KFC bones your roast chicken bones /meat, left over bbq staek/chops etc.
A pair with chicks will go thru easy 2 generous handfulls of veggies with no waste per day a good generous pinch at least of the chopped meat bones per day, 1/8 to 1/4 apple every 2 days and alternate days 1/2 kiwi fruit.
We feed a handfull in the morning sand evening, the meat either one of those feeds, and fruit during the day.
Once a week mix some apple cider vinegar into the veggies.....
If feel they could be lacking in something , 4 or 5 small quailty cat or kitten biskets once or twice a week.
Seed....ring/ email Top flite seeds in Omaru, mention this site and order the kakariki mix.
Cheers
Steps. _________________ My Spelling is Not Incorrect...It's 'Creative'
Thanks for your response. Yes I hand reared the chick in NZ - I had to as the parents deserted the chicks in the nest to start another round in a second nest - the other chicks died and I now never let them have two nest boxes!!
I give all my birds soaked wheatmeal bread mixed with Farex (didn't mention that part this morning), and when they are breeding they all just gobble it up, and I need to feed them this twice a day plus extra sprouted seed.
As I mentioned they also get soaked seed (with flax seed oil and mineral salts and calcium supplement) and sprouted seed. Of course they always get greens every day or other day if they are in short supply plus fruit and veges.
I've cooked up some chicken to add to the diet - also mixed some boiled egg yolk with the soaked bread and have bought some meal worms for them.
Thanks again for your feedback.
boil the egg, cut it in half
1 half in a toast for yourself (bit of paprika and mayonaise... yummy)
1 half for the hen kaka, with shell etc...
(yes, I sound like Steps, too much time lurking arond in this forum)
egg yolk only? why is that so?
and why bother to mix it with bread?
if you had 20-30 birds... it makes sense so that you can distribute, but for just 1 hen isn't that efficient
I have a home-made eggfood, I usually freeze it for a couple of months, but if I'm in short supply or forgot to un-freeze it, I just boil a couple of eggs (20 mins while you do any other stuff) and place a half in each aviary, cockatiels and kakariki work quickly through it _________________ AD ASTRA PER ASPERA
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