My sun conure is around one month old. He is getting his feeding 3 times a day but his crop empties very quickly. It empties 3 times a day, before feedings. I am supposed to give him 2 feedings a day very soon and I'm wondering how i will do that? I don't want him starving for half of the day. I fill his crop completely. Its very round and big (not too big). His formula is not watery. I have made it thicker but it still empties out very quickly.

My first question is where you found out about the feeding schedule and whether it's really appropriate. If conures are anything like cockatiels, this baby needs more than two feedings a day right now based on his current stage of development. Is he gaining weight at a good rate?

There's a handfeeding schedule for cockatiels at http://www.cockatiel.org/articles/handfeeding.html Two feedings a day is recommended for fledglings, but the age recommendations aren't appropriate for a conure chick because it takes them longer to reach fledging age.

The way to eliminate a feeding is to gradually taper off - feed a little less each time until you've reached an obvious stopping point. But the expectation is that the baby will make up for it by feeding himself, and you would provide easy to eat foods for him to experiment with. But babies usually don't start feeding themselves until they fledge, so if you eliminate a feeding sooner than that you have to watch carefully to make sure he's getting enough to eat. That's more important than following the schedule exactly.

Oh. I see. There aren't any Handfeeding charts for sun conures which is a problem. It's 3:30am and the baby woke up (I was awake before that). His crop is completely empty. Do I feed it? I'm going to give him a little now since nobody is online and I won't get an answer before daylight. He's screaming his little head off.

Can you feed birds on demand... I don't know... if Tango is hungry he wont settle...my gut instinct says feed him if he is hungry...whether that is correct I don't know, but you cant leave him hungry...
Why did you have him so young?

Lol you can't feed them on demand because you'll just be spending every living minute with a syringe in his mouth. It's a normal instinct for babies to cry for food - even when they are full.

This baby always cries for food. It's normal. He knows I'm his source of food. He's going to cry whether he is starving or full to bursting. It will only cause problems if I keep feeding him on demand. Over feeding chicks is not good.

Maybe this would be helpful?

http://www.ehow.com/how_12074988_handfe ... birds.html

I say feed him when his crop is empty or almost empty. If there's food in his crop he's not really hungry even though he might think he is. But when the crop is empty he's got nothing left to work on. Parent-raised cockatiel chicks never have empty crops and sun conures are probably the same.

Have you weighed him?
You should feed 10% of his bodyweight (read that of a box of nutribird A19 - a high energy foord source for handfeeding). It doesn't say anything about the type of bird though...

As for the amount of times, I'd go with the bottom tip in the link Bluekeet gave you.

Good luck!

How's Tango doing today?
I just luv his name...

Thanks guys!

He weighs 100 grams. I feed him 10 grams each feeding.

Tango is doing very well. I took some nice photos (including one of him on his back). I'll try to upload them tonight.