I think that’s what’s happening. She’s just having a hard time eating for 3. I’m being the surrogate dad for the time being. Seems to be working for now. Babies are looking good this morning. She seems to have more energy as well.
Good to see they are making it!
Perhaps feeding the male too will help him get the picture. He should be doing almost all the work, and as they get bigger, more food is needed of course. Ive never had to hand feed, thankfully, as parents did there job well.
Its a great way to get the birds used to human contact though, if you wish to have hand tame birds. It really imprints them. good luck!!
If the fates would let me have a day without a crisis that would be greatly appreciated.
It started snowing here a few hours ago and we rarely get snow so when we do, usually a tree will come down or something else will happen and the power will go out. I started wondering how I’d keep the darn babies warm with no power and decided I’d better go get some of those hand warmer thingies. So off I went to the store. There were three cars in ditches, two firetrucks and general mayhem all over. (I’m on Vancouver Island, we don’t understand snow…)
At 4:30 out goes the power. This is the absolute worse time for the power to go off as this is when she really eats and eats - I assume in preparation for the night. Starting at about 5:30 she comes up about every half an hour to eat, then back down to feed the babies. It’s also pitch black by that time so how can she fly up to eat if she can’t see.
Well she was starving by 6:00 so up she came. I had all the flashlights on and I held my phone over the food so she could see but I didn’t have enough hands to hand-feed her as well. Then she flew down in the dark to feed the chicks. The house kept getting colder and colder and the babies were crying and while I’d made a warm little nest for them in case I needed to warm them up, I had no way to feed them without power to boil water.
Finally a 7:20 it came back on. She came shooting out of the nest to the food dish and in between bites of seeds/pellets I fed her little mouthfuls of the mix I’ve made for her. She ate like a maniac and then went back to feed the babies and she’s been up 4 times in the last hour. There we are, she’s stuffing as much food into her face as she can and I’m cramming eggs and zucchini into her as well, and there’s her idiot husband, feeding the other male!!
The lights keep flickering so I’m just trying to get her to eat as much as possible.
Feeding the other male
WTH is wrong w/ you man
You don’t need a wingman when you literally have wings
I can’t even.
May I suggest you boil up some water while the power’s on? Also, do you have candles handy?
The handwarmer things consume oxygen and may or may not be too warm for the babies. Mama and her fluff, inside a nest box, will probably be adequate for the night. The most important thing is to get enough food into all of them.
The male that the dad was feeding? He’s…well someone once called him ‘obese’. But he still flies around so he’s fine, he just doesn’t need to be fed.
The power was off again for a little over an hour. I’m just going to stay up for a while in case she wants to come back up for food. It’s almost 11:00 and the other two are looking at me all bleary-eyed but her schedule is all off and I don’t want to turn out the lights in case she’s hungry again.
So, he’s a…pudgy budgie? 
Fingers crossed that mama keeps getting food into the little guys and your power stays on.
Well everyone made it. What a stressful, long night. The power would go out for an hour, come back on, repeat. I turned the lights on at 4 this morning so that she could make up for the lack last night. She was happy to start early.
Years ago I had a large fish tank and the power went out for 4 days. There was a wood stove there and for 4 stinking days, I took water from the tank, heated it on the stove and then put it back in the tank. I did this every 2 hours for 4 freaking days. Up the stairs with water, down the stairs with water. Not 1 fish or frog died. A friend who had a larger tank than I did lost all of his fish.
If the power goes out for that long again, we’re going to a hotel!
Maybe you should build an ark to have on hand, just in case…
FloatyGimpy Budgies
FloatyGimpy Budgies
FloatyGimpy Budgies
Ah, I can’t even make it to 5 without messing up.
Once you nurse some baby birds and/or their parents through bird babyhood and realize just what sort of nerve-wracking work it is, it gives a much greater appreciation for all those wild birds out there doing it without the help of another creature, without a cabinet/refrigerator full of food, without heat on demand, without potable water on tap and predators waiting to eat the babies and/or parents if they can… It’s sort of amazing that wild birds manage to raise babies to adulthood at all (and, of course, sometimes they don’t succeed).
Boy, you’re sure right about that. I’m a bundle of nerves and I go between thinking “let nature take its course” and “help them! save them!!”.
Anyway, here’s a new picture!:
They’re sweet! Are they peepy today?
Look like tiny little dinosaurs now… and like they need some sweaters.
Not as peepy as they were when they first hatched which stresses me out. Basically everything about them stresses me out - “they aren’t peeping enough” , “they’re peeping too much!”…
I call them vulture-bats. 
Peep?
Neat - you can see some feathers starting to come in.
Those heads do look pretty bizarre without the normal feathering - then again, any animal looks pretty much unrecognizable without its fur or feathers.
Do you have any idea how much weight they’ve gained since birth? (if you have a food scale that would let you watch that - might also satisfy you that they’re getting adequate food). How much does an adult budgie weigh anyway? 6 ounces or so?
Every day is one step closer to making it! You’re taking great care of the grandbudgies,
Too much peeping, no wait, not enough peeping!
I didn’t weigh them at the beginning so I don’t know but I’d say they’ve quadrupled (at least) in size!
That’s what I keep telling myself! We’re on day 10 so 1/3 of the way through the critical stage. Mom and I have perfected our routine, she eats seeds, then I feed her a mouthful of zucchini, more seeds, mouthful of egg, more seeds, mouthful of tofu, more seeds and on and on till she’s pretty full. Then I give her millet which she will eat to the exclusion of all else so she only gets that when she’s already had lots of other stuff.
New picture showing the start of yellow wing feathers!:
You shouldn’t have any trouble taming this pair! (I gather that’s something one has to work at with a budgie just brought home from the pet store).
Onto names. You do know you have to name them after one of their Doper aunties or uncles, right? :D.