So I noticed that birds have a knack for being parents, especially if they're experienced enough. That's something I've always admired in them, is their maternal instinct.

There are exceptions to this of course, the most commonly known would be species that practice "brood parasitism", where they lay one egg in someone else's nest, rather than making their own. An example would be this brown headed cowbird in an Eastern Phoebe nest.


There are some birds however, that will actually volunteer to raise a baby that is not their own, be it from another of their own kind or another species altogether. Here are some birds that go out of their way to act as a loving "parront" to a bird that doesn't even look the same.

First thing on the list is an average aviary cockatiel, who took on the responsibility of raising a turquoisine parakeet.

If this looks or sounds familiar at all, you may remember when I made a thread about cockatiels that like to annoy other species. This was the cockatiel that literally sang in the ears of a turquoise parakeet pair, when he couldn't get into the nest box.

After looking into the history behind these videos a little more, apparently this cockatiel is one among four male cockatiels in the aviary. Sold originally as a female, "Leela" was a part of a pair back when the person first put birds in the aviary. It turns out that rather than being a female, he was just a young male. Since he has no female to mate with, he helps a turquoisine pair raise their young, and has been quite successful with it.


Our next story takes place in Germany where a baby swallow that fell out of it's nest was taken in by an animal trainer kind enough to nurse the weak thing back to health. In the process, "Max" the swallow found himself with a little green foster mom; a budgie named Susie.

Now due the the complications such as the difference in beaks and diets, I don't think this budgie was able to feed her adoptive son at all, but she made sure little Max was clean and warm, and acted as a babysitter while the trainer and his son went to catch the swallow's food (swallows primarily eat insects).
If you wish to read the story for yourself, you can find the article here: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article ... iends.html

Speaking of budgies, our next story is about another one deciding to try and be a mom to another species, but in this case, the chick hadn't even hatched. A japanese girl brought home some quail eggs from a grocery store, and gave one to her budgie "Pi-chan" to incubate. To a lot of people's surprise, the egg actually hatched!
With the exception of trader joe's, getting live fertile eggs in grocery stores is not really common. However, in Japan, they can be sold not only fertile, but they are also not refrigerated, so the possibility of getting an incubated egg to hatch is even more possible.

I'm unsure of the actual fate of this chick since I can't read Japanese, but judging from the girl's videos, I think the quail grew up to be happy, healthy, and and with friends.
If you wish to read the article, you can find it here: http://www.mentalfloss.com/article/7286 ... ly-hatches

I tried to find stories of parrots other than cockatiels and budgies doing something like this, but to no luck. However, back when my mom was a breeder, she tried to raise gouldian finches, though it seemed like they never wanted to take care of their young. So while she handfed some, she ended up placing others into the nests of zebra and society finches. I can't quite remember how the outcome was, but I think I remember my mother saying it wasn't quite as successful...

In the search though, I did stumble accross a couple of interesting pictures. A 10 year old cockatiel meets a 3 week old canary for the first time, and his reaction is adorable.


What is it with cockatiels and being such darlings, I wonder? They are just so sweet, when they're not causing trouble like mine.

This very last story shows a bit more of a teamwork effort, rather just one species taking care of another. This story is in the form of a nearly 20 minute long video of a very crowded looking nestbox. A budgie decided to lay her eggs in a cockatiel's nestbox, and together, both pairs ended up taking care of the chicks inside.

While the budgie mom seemed to just feed her own babies, there comes a point where the cockatiel parents start taking care of the budgie chicks as well as their own.
I honestly feel sorry for the youngest and smallest budgie chick in there, since it almost looks like he's getting stepped on by the cockatiel, who is the biggest one in the box. The way they huddled together is really cute, though.
The cockatiel chick being among the smaller budgie chicks also reminded me of a certain pixar short involving birds.

Seem familiar to anyone?

If you guys have heard of any stories, or had any experience of birds raising (or trying to raise) other species, feel free to share here. Also feel free to share what you think about some of the stories presented here.

Here is a short film on the Cuckoo bird. It is a parasite bird.

Yes, the common cuckoo is a very well known brood parasite. I guess you can say it's a "commonly" known.

I guess you can say Cuckoo's are one of the more selfish brood parasites, since it pushes any other eggs or chicks out of the nest. The brown headed cowbird doesn't do this, though depending on whether the other chicks die of starvation from the parents giving the cowbird chick all the food or not, I guess they're not that much nicer to it's adoptive siblings.

It makes me wonder how you would breed these kinds of birds. Either you make a nest with fake eggs for the bird to lay in, and incubate the real egg, or you house it with another species. Most likely the latter.

At least parrots are nice enough to help with the other babies, judging by the nest box video with the cockatiels and budgies.

I heard a story once about a budgie hen who had to raise her chicks as a single mother, because her mate was in love with a canary hen and spent all his time helping out with the canary babies. The canary daddy didn't mind. Don't ask me how a budgie helps to raise canary chicks because I don't have a clue. Their beaks seem too different to allow feeding but maybe I'm wrong.

Well, considering the fact that canaries are finches, I would think their beaks to be too different, as well. At the same time though, canary beaks aren't that big. It might be possible for the budgie to actually manage to get some food in there. It's possible that said budgie also watched how the canary parents fed them, and adapted accordingly.