Okay, Marshmallow and Bio are terrible parents! They make their babies bleed and barely feed them. Bio does an okay job but Marshmallow does not...probably because when she was a baby, Georgie did the same to her. A chick died in their first clutch because of starvation.

In there second clutch, they learnt from their mistakes and did a fabulouse job.

Some things to worry about before saying "yes" to this question

1. Georgie LOVES Marshmallow! I feel like he will just be interested in her instead and make things worse.
2. Bio hates Georgie! Bio will probably attack him because he will be flirt with his mate and go in the nest.

What should I do? I assist feed them everyday but they need more food. I play cuckoo chick noises to stimulate them to make them feed their babies and it works like a charm, but I can't be playing that every hour.

You may want to consider pulling them and completely hand feed them yourself and don't put them back with the parents. They could kill them. I currently have a pair that are excellent parents until the babies start growing their pin feathers then they are very aggressive and pluck them. I had to remove them but I still let them feed the babies but once they are mean I take them away. They are also more aggressive bc they have more eggs in the nest and want the babies to stay out. Your best bet would be to completely remove and hand feed which is what I'm gonna do when this second clutch hatches.

Sent from my SPH-L710 using Tapatalk

Is there anyone else who can help handfeed the babies when you're not home? Adding Georgie to the situation probably would cause violence. Parent birds (especially males) tend to turn against their friends when they have a nest to protect, and these two weren't friends to start out with. It's possible that even Marshmallow might attack Georgie if you put him in with them now.

What are they doing to the babies to make them bleed - are they plucking the pinfeathers or doing something else? Sometimes plucking problems can be solved by adding more salt to the diet, and I think you are already giving them bread with a little bit of salted butter on it. High-sodium vegetables like red chard are helpful too. But sometimes the parents just want the babies to leave the nest so they can start a new clutch, and sodium won't help with that.

I'm so stuck! I can't possibly take them out to handfeed them. I can barely feed them twice a day.

The pluck the babies, but their last attempt was not pretty! It left baby#3's back of the wing bloody, I have pics!

I gave them salty chips right after that accident. The chips had more than 300 grams of sodium.

Any ideas?

Give them some sodium-rich foods every day, preferably not potato chips. The need for sodium is ongoing.

Do you know whether it's one specific parent that's doing it? If it's just one parent you can remove that one and let the other parent take care of the babies. It's helpful that you only have three chicks, but the two of them combined aren't feeding the babies enough and the problem might get worse with only one parent on duty.

Is it possible to handfeed them three times a day? Once in the morning before school, once right after school, and again at bedtime. That would help a lot. You probably know about the right thickness for the food, and Susanne's recommendation to feed 10% of body weight at each feeding. According to http://www.cockatiel.org/articles/handfeeding.html at your babies' age they should be getting four handfeedings a day. If you can feed them 3 times, hopefully the parents will provide enough to be equal to a 4th feeding.

I know Marshmallow is very young and I don't remember how old Bio is. Young parents are often not the best parents, but the babies are here now and you need to find a way to take care of them. You could ask Susanne for suggestions. She probably can't raise them for you so don't expect anything like that, but maybe she knows someone else who could help.

It's Marahmallow, but Bio does it as well. Marshmallow plucks the wings while Bio plucks the crest.

Looking at the pictures on the breeding journey thread, I think I can see signs of plucking on the back of the youngest baby's head. So far the plucking actually isn't too bad, although it might get worse. I don't see any noticeable plucking on the older chicks. Since the plucking is so limited it might be a sodium issue not the urge to breed again, and that would be good because sodium deficiency is easy to fix. Try giving some buttered bread every day because there's nothing to lose. Butter isn't the highest-nutrition food in the world, but it has lots of calories and that will help support the growth of the chicks.

I was just talking to Susanne about some stuff that's completely unrelated to you. She said that if she has any plucking issues, she's going to experiment with giving the parent birds a small bowl of hulled salted sunflower seeds. I think that is an EXCELLENT idea. The seeds are easy to get at grocery stores. If you go this route keep the amount small, maybe a few seeds once or twice a day.

I'll be setting my birds up for breeding in about a month and I need to remember this idea.

I will definitely try this! I'll post the pictures of the wing tomorrow.

What can I do to encourage the parents to feed the chicks more? I got the cuckoo chick idea when I was researching on them.

I don't know the answer to that question. Susanne might be able to help if you can ask her.