Handraising a Budgie

My story.

I first had to handraise a 3 week old baby that had been attacked by its parents. When I found it I took him inside and placed him in an electric frypan lined with a tea towel on low heat and placed a box over the whole thing. I then found an old washbasket and a double electric blanket which I lined with the bottom section so that half the blanket would be warm I turned on one side of it. I hung a thermometer in it to keep the temperature at 35�C. The baby must be kept warm to ensure he digests his food. I then found a formula (I will give details later), I bent a teaspoons sides up to make a funnel of the end. I made up the formula and kept it warm by placing it in a container of hot water. I then got the baby out of the pan and placed him on some paper towels, checked that the formula was still warm (this can be done by placing a spoonful on you lip) and fed him. After feeding him I placed him in the warmed up washbasket inside a cardboard box lined with old face cloths and left him to settle down. I checked on him after half an hour to make sure he was warm and his crop had started to empty. Then the fun began...feeds every two hours during the day and every three hours through the night. As he got older the feeds were reduced as was the temperature in the washbasket. This lasted for weeks till at long last he was feeding himself on fresh sprouted greens with three handfeeds a day. I then transferred him into a cage. He nows rules the household with his ringing of his bell at sun-up and then not going to sleep till he has had a tickle.

This season I had the misfortune to loose one of my male breeders. He got loose when the nestbox was opened without the door to the breeding room being shut and of course he was gone. Trouble was there were 8 young in the nest and only the female to feed them all so the youngest two were not being fed. I had to remove them from the nestbox and handfeed the pair of them. I followed the same formula as before and low and behold they both survived and now I have the pleasure of having three handraised budgies ruling the roost.

Formula

Mix 5g of baby cereal (such as Farex or Heinz Hi protein cereal) with 15 ml of vitamised greens or vegetables and 0.5 ml vegetable oil. The baby cereal in this recipe has essentially the same composition as seeds but with added vitamins. The vitamised vegetables add fibre and extra protein. The vegetable oil is used to increase the energy content in the ration.

General rules for feeding babies

Newly hatched chicks need to fed very frequently - hourly during the day and every 2 hours through the night. Intervals between meals can increase as the bird becomes older.

Do not feed a baby unless its crop is empty and it has passed droppings since its previous meal. If it has not digested the food provided, make sure that the bird is being kept adequately warm. If its body temperature is too low the chick will not be able to digest food.

Feeding birds is messy. Clean the chick after each meal with a soft cloth dipped in warm water.

Do not disturb chicks unnecessarily between meals.

Thoroughly wash feeding utensils between feeds and sterilse them (as you would a baby's bottle) by boiling or soaking in hypochlorite solution.

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