On Feeding Baby Birds

By Richard Chiger

Several years ago I had the dubious pleasure, or possible misfortune, of watching several "hand raised" baby birds being put through their hand feedings by the owners and directors of a commercial aviary that I considered to be tantamount to a puppy mill. The fledgling birds were systematically taken out from under a shelf or cabinet, confined to a towel covered fish tank, where the aviary owner plopped a syringe of food into each open yearning mouth and then replaced them back onto this structure from which they were taken.

There was no nurturing, handling, fondling or loving. It might as well have been a machine filling each crop with food and then moving on. It is mind-boggling to conjecture how much attention and support would have to be lavished on these baby birds to compensate for this emotional neglect in an effort to turn them into loving pets with some degree of "birdie" self-esteem.

The kind of situation that I described here is not uncommon. Birds are removed from their parents for the convenience of the hand raiser, rather than the best interests of the baby birds. Not all hand raising is this cold and I am sure many people who hand raise baby birds do it with love and understanding. However, whether it is done with warmth or with the kind of cold disregard that I saw, one thing is not taken into consideration and that is the feelings of the mother or both parent birds.

I find that in our valiant attempt to do things right when raising baby birds and other animals in zoo situations, the emotional needs of the parent animals are the last things considered, when it is considered at all. With this in mind I present my feelings on how to do this job in a way that is kind, productive, totally taking the ;"Mom" into consideration and turning out some fantastic pet birds.

Not being a veteran bird breeder, I was kind of shocked when Penelope, my female cockatiel, laid eggs in a box on the dresser in my computer room. I was even more dumbfounded when those eggs hatched. She was such an attentive mother, always feeding and nuzzling the tiny baby birds. I was determined to let her completely raise her own babies as I feel strongly that this is her right. I also wanted the baby birds to be great pets........so this is how I did it and it worked.

Once the baby's eyes were open I talked to them every day, and would take them out one at a time (trying to disturb her as little as possible) and kiss and pet them and cuddle with them. They honestly were not too thrilled, but I wanted them to have an acquaintance with the human hand as a positive thing. When they fledged and started to fly around the room....I took each one separately into a small room where I worked on them getting them to sit on my hand and shoulder. I did that for a couple of days and, voila, I have the friendliest, tamest and most loving cockatiels I have ever known. I will compare them to hand-raised birds that are raised under the finest and most nurturing conditions................

The difference here is that the mother bird (the father, Zeke, had no interest) was not frustrated and hurt emotionally by having her chicks removed. I cannot believe that a bird that wants to raise her babies does not suffer when they are taken away from her. I think that most people who feel that the parent birds do not care just say that to assuage their own guilt. I feel that negating the fact that parent birds have feelings is a terrible cruelty and really not a necessary thing if you make a concerted effort to tame a baby bird as soon as it fledges.

Check out Antonio, or any of his brothers or sisters to see if I am telling the truth. You will be pleasantly surprised.........Baby birds with the highest self esteem and happy mothers too,,,,,,,,,,,,a good thing.