Sunday, January 5, 2014

The Next Stage

As you can see from this picture
The chicks are still growing like some sort of 50's sci-fi nuke powerplant accident movie gone horribly wrong.   At this rate, they'll be toppling sky scrapers in Manhatten by St. Patrick's day.  Speaking of which, this picture;
  
 
reminds me of some really old photos (back in the 70's) I have of myself and some of my home brewing buddies when we were too poor to buy store bought beer and too dumb to know when to quit. 

Enough with the reminiscing, back to the issue at hand.  These little buggers, especially chicks #1, and #2 are getting pretty rambunctious.  I can hear them rumbling around in the nest box and on occasion when I have peeked in on them I've noticed the two larger chicks pecking at the pine shavings; the cross roads of hunger an adolescence.  I assume it won't be long before they start to explore the world outside the nest box, and therein lies my dilemma.  here is a pic of our cage set up:
 
The cage is 4'6" tall, by 2'6" wide, by 1'6" deep.  It's no aviary but pretty big compared to a parakeet.  The nest box is mounted on the outside of the cage, 3' 6" above the floor of the cage.  Here are a few questions for those of you who have more experience than me:

1.  Should I be worried about a harmful fall by the first chick who dares to explore outside the nest box?

2.  Should I build and mount some sort of platform or 'launch pad' just outside the nest box entry hole for the chick(s) to climb out on?

3.  Should I lower the nestbox, closer to the floor of the cage to better deal with this potential problem?

4.  Should I start placing food inside the nest box for the chicks to get at?  If so how would I go about that?

5.  Am I overthinking this?

6.  Should I seek the guidance of a psychologist to talk me in off the ledge?

Your help will be greatly appreciated because I am sure I am going to have to deal with these issues sooner than I expect. 




1 comment:

  1. No advice here. It has been hard enough just to keep up with your posts; I can't imagine being in your shoes.

    "Keeping Up With the Keets" -- sounds like a television show.

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