The victory picture! What a great thread this has been. 
My spouse has raised a baby lovebird from hatching to fledging without parental help (baby bird had a deformity and was literally thrown out of the nest by mom - it’s instinctive and she had four others to raise) and a clutch of baby house finches whose nest had been destroyed (fished one of them out of bucket of rainwater, poor thing almost drowned), although our adult conure took it upon himself to help feed and clean up the babies in that case. Which was a relief because we had some fear he’d regard them as a snack rather than as baby birds needing care.
It all happens so fast with baby birds, and you seem to lurch from one near-catastrophe to another (with the house finches we lost two out of the five). But now you get to enjoy the phase when the babies are first learning about the world. They’re like puppies, only more excitable and they learn to fly.
Congratulations!
Momma Green: “Well that was fun…let’s do it again!!”.
FloatyGimpy: :eek::eek::eek::eek:…:eek:
I took it and shook the hell out of it then put it back. That bloody bird!
Oh hell naw! I don’t care if it’s fertilized, unfertilized or made of bone china.
I’m starting to see why pet stores always seem so over-abundantly supplied with cages full of budgies ;).
Are there such things as fake budgie eggs so maybe she’ll stop laying so much? I think I heard that when I had an ambitious cockatiel. What an over-achiever! LOL.
There are and I have some really good quality fake budgie eggs. She liked them and they did the trick for a few months but eventually she started laying her own beside the fake ones and that’s how the “little darlings” hatched. This time I’m just going to let her have her own eggs but shake the living hell out of them and see if that satisfies her for a while.
One of these things is not like the other…
Or you could, just a thought, offer hatchlings to their fans here on the Dope! 
I think I’d rather make teeny tiny omelettes. Or egg teeny tiny houses.
:eek:
I think these two already took a few years off Floaty’s life. 
I LOLed at that picture!!
Oh come on, where’s your sense of adventure? This was major excitement for those of us following along. Let’s do it again!!!
Awwww!
But - ‘beak trapped shut’? Somehow I missed that. What happened??
It’s amazing how big they already are! I know this has been a pain in the ass, but at least you’re getting really friendly birds out of it. Makes me want a flock.
From here on 12/11.
[QUOTE=FloatyGimpy]
I can’t believe any birds in the wild survive.
Starting about 2:00 am this morning, the babies were doing a lot of peeping and it sounded different than normal. Mom does normally feed them during the night with whatever leftovers she has in her so I just let it be and assumed they were hungry and she’d feed them. This went on with them peeping and then quiet then peeping till about 3:00. I got the flashlight and peeked into the nesting box hole and she was doing stuff with her back to me so I figured she’s feeding them but the peeping kept on.
At 4:00 I decided something is wrong so I turned on the lights to get her to come out for food. When she did come out, she had managed to wrap nesting material around her beak and it was caked in food that she’d been trying to feed the babies and now it was dry and hard. She’s not tame enough to let me hold her and pick it off so I didn’t know what to do. She could obviously still breathe so I wasn’t worried about her immediately dying but the babies were super hungry so I attempted to feed them with no luck.
This went on till about 7:00 when I managed to trick her into letting me help her. She had been trying to have a drink so the stuff on her beak was wet and I figured now’s the best time to try to get it off. I held a tiny piece of egg between my fingers and when she reached in for it, I pinched my fingers around a bit of the stuff that was on her beak and held tight. She freaked out a bit but with her pulling and freaking out and me holding on to it, the stuff mostly came off.
I’ve changed the bedding in the nest box so that won’t happen again but gah! I’ll be so happy when they can feed themselves.
She’s also still slightly freaked out about the change in the bedding material and is shocked about it every time she goes back to the nest but she’s dealing with it.
No pictures today as they’ve all had a very stressful day and I don’t want to bug them.
[/QUOTE]
Just read this thread.
I don’t like birds.
But I love yours. This was a great story and you did a great job! Hats off to you!
That was just as stressful on the re-read. 
Still, the next time I went to the Living Planet I was more appreciative than I’d ever been of how the birds are cared for.
They’re super friendly and as tame as any dog. They do want constant attention though which is a bit much but I keep telling myself that we all worked really hard to keep them alive so the dishes can wait while we play and snuggle. They have little tempers on them though! They get jealous if the other one is getting too much attention and then they spaz out and flip their heads all over in indignation.
Momma has put her foot down and is in full-on wean mode. It was pretty stressful at first because the babies would be standing beside her crying and crying and she’d just ignore them and eat. I keep telling myself “they’re fine, they’re fine”. They’re both eating well on their own and mom does stuff them full in the evening so they aren’t hungry during the night. I’m helping them through the weaning process as best as I can with lots of hand-feeding and snuggles.
Glad you enjoyed it! It’s been an adventure and a real learning process.
Today is day 43 and Miss Aqua is officially weaned! For the last week she has been asking to be fed less and less often, only asking for a night feed. Tonight she rejected her mom’s attempt at a feeding and even chased her away from the food dish. She’s a monster who terrorizes her dad and especially poor, obese Uncle Blue. He’s terrified of them both but she chases him around with her little beak open. All visits are supervised so I don’t have to worry about him too much.
Here she is on their new perch:
Mr Octa is still asking for lots of meals from mom but also eating very much on his own. I think it’s mostly a comfort thing. He’s a little sweetheart but also has amazing tantrums if I try to make him stop doing something.
Here they both are on the new perch. Octa on the right and Aqua on the left:
If I have to go out anywhere, they are closed in their cage and when I come back they’re both hanging on the sides, calling to me and need big snuggles and lots of talking to. They’re sort of like Chihuahuas with their cherub/demon personalities.
Momma Green has laid 3 eggs. I shook them but that didn’t convince me that it’d done the trick so I put one in the freezer but it cracked once it froze. So then I boiled one and that convinced me but then I decided “screw this” and chucked them all and put the fake eggs back in. She’s contentedly sitting on them all, softly talking to herself.
Here’s a video of them on their new perch. Octa is again on the right and Aqua on the left:
Do they fly around the room now?