This is one of the stupidest questions ever. Why does she lay so many eggs? Do all those eggs get fertilized at one time via the male?
She’s an egg laying maching! This last egg laying go around she laid 16 eggs. When she lays them I take them out and put them in a little cup on my desk and there are 10 in there. She laid another 6 in secret.
As you wish! Here they are with very full crops. I’ve removed the four other eggs to give these two the best chance at survival. I touched their warm little bodies and nearly squee’d to death!
As I understand it, the dug out area is the key – our vet wanted the babies to have support on the sides and room underneath for feetsies. We were shown how to make “sock donuts” for that purpose. I would be inclined to let your budgie mom do her own thing.
I held the babies for the first time today (for a quick check-over) and I couldn’t believe how hot they were! Here’s a new picture:
Momma is doing an excellent job. She really wants me to hand-feed her right now so I’m happy to oblige. It’s interesting to see the things that I’m feeding her end up in their crops. I can see a bit of green in there which is from the vegetables she’s eating. I was a bit worried about picking them up if it would bother her. They squeaked but she didn’t seem to mind at all. She’s pretty trusting of me and with all the hand-feeding she’s used to being very close to me.
All in all a fun but also a bit stressful experience having these babies!
That’s so neat. They’re gorgeous birds. I was surprised to see that they’re so naked. My only experience with newly-hatched birds is with chickens, and they’re adorable and fluffy and bright-eyed about an hour after they’re out of the shell.
I’d love to see them grow; please keep us posted!
Oh, geez. Hearts and feels. This is such a sweet thread. Thank you for keeping us updated on your tiny miracles!
Near disaster! Still don’t know if the crisis is averted or not. I noticed yesterday that their peeping was becoming less frequent and quieter and just sounding weaker. I checked on them and their crops were just about empty so I started to get a bit worried. Mom seemed like she just couldn’t get enough food into her and she was starting to act a bit panicky.
I decided to give it till this morning before I would intervene and when I checked on them, their crops were empty, they were acting very weak and slow and quiet so I decided I’d better try feeding them. I managed to get a few mouthfuls of the egg mixture into both of them but it was extremely stressful for them, for me and for mom who had to be locked in the cage while I attempted the feeding. I did this one more time with the same, barely successful, stressful results. There may have been a few tears. 
I decided I needed to think about what would be the best option for them and for me so I went for a walk in the mountains with my dog for a big old think-fest.
I decided that the quickest way to have her abandon them is for me to keep interfering with them so I’m just not going to anymore. The solution I came up with is to focus on getting food into her. So I chopped up into teeny tiny budgie bite-sized pieces, eggs, zucchini, bread and peas and hand fed her bite after bite (which took a really long time!). I’ve been doing this almost constantly for the last few hours and now the babies are well-fed and loud again - phew!
Fingers crossed that this works!!
Fingers crossed in solidarity, FG! I know this is stressful and you’re doing the best you can and brainstorming how to do even better.
Thank you! And yes, so stressful! :eek:
What happened to the third egg you were sure would hatch? I guess that never happened?
Watching thread with interest - I’ll never have pet birds so this is my chance to watch them vicariously.
I ended up taking all of the eggs out. I stressed about doing that but now I’m so glad that I did. With her having trouble feeding two I don’t know how she’d manage three or more.
She’s never been super healthy. When she came to me, she was severely underweight, was lacking feathers and had two broken toes. It’s taken a lot of effort to keep her alive over the years! She’s still underweight (even thought my other budgies are pudgy to just plain fat). She’s gone from thinking I’m trying to kill her to hand feeding, crawling on me and pulling my hair so I quite like her.
She’s just had another big feed and the babies are loud and moving around again. They’re obviously growing as well, so maybe it’ll all be OK.
Fingers crossed. I had pet budgies when I was a kid. They’re awesome birds. I’m glad mama bird is tame and accepts food out of your hand and is feeding her babies.
Toward the end of her life I was directly feeding my cat Pipsqueak (that I’d had since ~6 weeks and she lived to 18 yrs) extra calories and liquid; it felt like forever but was only a few months. There’s no way to convey to them that you’re doing this to help them live, though of course they understand they need food; you hate to stress them, to feel like you’re breaking the trust they’ve had in you.
But that’s the deal when you’re the mommy; your actions aren’t always popular or understood but at least your caring is evident.
The only alternative to feeding mom would be syringe-feeding the babies with baby bird formula - it’s a powder you mix up sort of like powdered human baby food. But it’s not easy to do properly. My spouse has nursed a couple of baby birds safely through early infancy, but he hasn’t always been successful.
If you can get enough food into mom so she can feed them that’s probably better all around.
With lovebirds and conures daddy helps out (we’ve had a couple male birds that helped feed nestlings of their own accord), but I don’t know about baby cockatiels.
It’s always nice to read about other pets who have known love and compassion throughout their entire lives.
Momma budgie has had 4 huge meals and while I don’t want to jinx it, the babies seem to have grown since this morning. They’ll be a week old tomorrow.
Well dad budgie has the mating part down pat but not only is he not feeding the babies, he see’s the goodies I’m feeding her and tries to take it out of her mouth! :smack:
Time for a certain dad budgie to get a J.O.B.
I suspect he’s going to end up being one of those deadbeat dads!
How stressful! I know how it is to worry about and care for fragile creatures. I’m so glad things are looking up.
With our budgies the male feeds the female, who then immediately feeds the chicks.
I pull the chicks at about one week of age and gavage feed (tube and syringe) them a commercial hand feeding formula. I keep the chicks in a small incubator that can be plugged into a car’s cigarette lighter (I take them to work with me). Definitely simpler to allow the hen to feed, but unless the male is feeding her or the chicks, it’s pretty draining on the hen.