Monday, January 6, 2014

Just like a Tippy Cup

So, just to help ease your mind (because I know you were wracking your brains last nght)  here are the answers to the pop quiz from yesterday's post. 

1.  No

2.  No

3.  No

4.  Yes, millet spray

5.  Definitely

6.  Probably not.

Now, to elaborate;  I got some great, if very simple advice from a friend over at the Budgarigars Forum which went something like this:

No need to worry about chicks falling from the nest box unless the entrance is low to the floor.  This is a commercially made nest box, and looking at it from this new enlightened vantage, it is clear that they thought about that when they designed it.  The chicks will have to be able to at least flutter if not fly to get up to the nest box entry.  By the time they have what it takes to get up to the entrance hole, they should be able to handle the drop to the floor.  This pretty much renders questions 2, and 3 moot (of course my inner skeptic is snickering in my ear.)

Question 4 is where the Homer Simpson 'D'oh!' comes in handy.  Of course as these little birds get bigger they will graduate to the 'finger food' stage and that's where the millet spray comes in.  You would not give a 2 year old kid a big glass of milk, you'd give her a bottle, maybe a tippy cup.  Putting a tray or some sort of container of seed or that 'salad mix' I have been putting together would become a mess in the nest box faster than you could say  "what a mess!"  So the millet spray is the Tippy Cup application for budgie babies.   

I know what you are thinking:  That's like giving the 2 year old a plate of french fries fresh from McKeets, right?  Well yes, you are right, but I have an easy solution for that:  Cold Turkey.  While they are confined to the nest box they'll have access to this special bird treet, but in a couple weeks when they graduate to the world outside the nest box, they'll  have to learn to forage and they will find very little millet spray out in the cage.

As for seeking professional help, I've tried that and it wasn't very satisfactory, for me or the counsellor.

Isn't it funny how, in the age of the internet superhighway sometimes when we are stuck by the side of the road we automatically look for a complex, elborate, 'tech' fix, to the point of overlooking the most obvious, simple solutions? Occam's Razor in the new century.

Oh Yes, todays chick Pix.
 
 
 

As you can see chick #1 is seperated from his broodmates.  I think this is the doing of mom.  Yesterday I peeked in through the entry hole when I heard the ruckus and I got the impression that she was hearding chicks around, probably having to do with eqitable feeding.  Or perhaps because he is big enough that in the huddle for warmth he might squash the smaller chicks.  Anyway, he looks a little lonely over there to me.

PS:  Thanks for the comment Skiff, "Keeping up with the Keets", I like it!  The drama queen in me wants to make this seem 'epic' but the reality is the keets pretty much take care of themselves in spite of my best efforts.  But, they are certainly growing fast.

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