And as promised, pics:

When do their ears open? He was curled up asleep so cute, but he heard the camera click and started begging for food.


This is the basket I got:


I added a divider in the middle, so his little nest is on one side and all his feeding supplies are on the other.


And here it is under my desk at work:


His new nest in the box:


Him compared to the infertile egg. This was early yesterday, I think? He's gotten bigger but he's definitely not growing as quickly as we want him to.

Love the basket, what a great setup! I don't actually know when their ears open up (I haven't paid any attention to that) but the eyes typically open when the chick is about a week old. It will probably take longer for your little guy since he's fallen behind on his development. 4 grams is more like the weight for a day 1 or day 2 chick, and his size next to the egg looks right for that too. But he'll start catching up now that you've corrected the food problem. Did the vet think he looked good otherwise? You did really well taking the baby in.

I didn't get to see a vet--the avian one isn't in on Mondays. The vet techs didn't have much advice but they thought he was really cute.

He is adorable. You are doing a great job with him. I never had this type of experience so I am learning as we go on this journey.

So we're now digesting .2 mLs of formula every hour and a half, which is not quite as quick as we want but is a big improvement. Ideally he'd be taking .4 mLs every 2 hours, I believe. Aside from slow digestion, everything is still looking good. I'm adding Susanne's spice remedy, which I'm not sure I believe will help but a little garlic can't hurt him so whatever, worth a shot. I kind of wonder if maybe his intestines got a little impacted--the last few hours he's had some huge (well, relatively) poops. I made the formula a little thinner overnight and made it with coconut water instead of plain water, maybe that loosened everything up?

Wow! Good for you in figuring this out. Hope the little tyke stays well.

He's better hydrated now in addition to having more food, which all contributes to bigger poops. Babies are poop machines because they eat so much, and their output is large and frequent.

Well, whatever the reason we're now at .3 mL every 2-ish hours.

I'm using Lafeber's formula, and a note if anyone else ever uses it--let it sit a bit before feeding. It seems to keep absorbing water for a little while after being mixed, so it'll be the right consistency when you stop stirring but a few minutes later is too thick. I mix it to about the consistency of heavy cream, and then heat it up in a double boiler. It's roughly the right consistency by the time it's the right temp, and I can tweak it a bit further if I need to then. It doesn't say this anywhere in the directions, but this is possibly another source of difficulties. I like the formula otherwise, not that I have anything to compare it to. He certainly slurps it down. It smells great.

People at work want to make him our mascot People kept coming over to take pictures of him. I feel like he's bigger today, although it could be my imagination. He is also definitely JJ's chick--he's loud, he chirps softly to himself in his sleep, and when I touched his back he whipped around to try to bite me (well...I think he whipped his head around because POSSIBLE FOOD SOURCE but he certainly looked JJ-ish).

He can balance on just his two feet without his chest resting on the ground for a second or two. He also does the "skater stretch" where they extend a leg and wing on the same side, although this he does laying down.

Scale came today and it is excellent. I got this one.

Empty he weighs 5.15 grams. Yesterday he weighed 4 grams half-empty, so he's put on a bit more than a gram in weight in the last 24 hours. Yay!

He's not as fussy now either, and is sleeping more. He's still begging for food a lot though.

It's so amazing how similar they are, in some ways, to human infants.