I find myself giving Bitsy and Roscoe soft foods several times during the day In the late afternoon/early evening I give them nutriberries and whole grain bread, sometimes a little soft food. I make sure they have fresh seed and pellets in their cage as well as multigrain bread.

What do you who work or are gone during the day do about soft foods for the parent birds? I never leave the soft foods out more than 1 1/2 to 2 hrs?

I am going to be away from about 11 am Easter to late that evening. What do I do about their soft foods?

Also I am thinking about co-parenting for one feeding. I was thinking that I would probable do a middle feeding but their crops are never empty. Also I don't know what I would do on Easter. I thought I would start co-parenting when the youngest chick was 2 wks old.

If they'll eat pellets, that's an excellent soft food - they turn to mush when the parents drink water. But otherwise you're pretty much limited to bread. It'll get dried out of course, but if the parents will re-soften it by drinking water. My parent birds don't care for stale bread but they'll eat it if there's nothing better available - I can't always be home to replenish the soft-food supply either. Bread isn't as moist as a lot of other foods to start out with and it dries out fairly fast (at least in Arizona lol), so it doesn't have the problems with mold and bacteria.

In order to co-parent my babies, I lock the parents out of the breeding cage for an hour or two before I want to feed the chicks. They are not pleased about this but they aren't terribly traumatized by it either. It's the only way the chicks will be hungry enough to take the formula, since diligent parents keep their babies well filled all the time. Even with this break the babies aren't completely empty, and they don't take nearly as much formula as a completely handfed baby would.