Thanks for support everyone!

It might help to remember that even a veterinarian wasn't able to save the baby, and he has much more skill than you do. He did his best too, but sometimes it's just not meant to be.

Yes, I just have to keep remembering that. It was so sad. As the vet stuck the tube down the babys throat, you could see it suffering. He stuck the tube in there and out at least 10 times! My other baby is what's keeping me going. I know I can't make any more mistakes. If something happens to my other baby, I don't know what I'll do with myself. So, what are the signs that it is a boy behavior wise? He/she is starting to eat the seed by itself. I guess that means no more chance for feeding mistakes.

It will be a while before the baby can eat enough to take care of his own needs, so keep an eye on the situation to make sure the parents are still feeding him and his weight is still good. Pretty soon they won't be stuffing his crop as full, but this is normal. He's getting close to fledging age, and a baby couldn't fly properly with a big heavy crop weighing him down. He's also not growing as fast as he was before and doesn't need as much food for growth.

You can provide him with easy to eat foods that he can learn with. Babies learn to eat millet spray very quickly and easily, and more slowly with other foods. Soft vegetables are a great weaning food - put some leafy greens where he can reach them easily. You don't want wet foods in the nest, but once he has fledged you can offer corn kernels, whole-grain bread, nutritious cooked foods, and soaked or sprouted seeds and grains. Pellets too - these are hard for a baby to eat, but they're very nutritious and it's important for him to learn how to eat them. Babies learn better with foraging-style eating than with eating from a cup, so hang food in the cage where it's easy to reach or spread it out on a flat surface like a table top.

Fledging and weaning is an exciting time in a baby's life, and you get to share it with him! When he's getting ready to fledge, he'll spend a lot of time looking out the nestbox door for a few days, then will spend time sitting in the doorway (and probably blocking his parents lol). The first time he leaves the nest, he'll probably fall out and will flap all the way down until he lands on the floor. Take a look at the cage in advance to make sure there's nothing in the cage that he might crash into on the way down and get hurt - you want a fairly clear path between the nestbox door and the bottom of the cage. If there's a grate on the bottom of the cage, you can spread some newspaper on top of it, to give him a solid surface to stand on and also to help soften the landing a little bit.

He'll be very clumsy at first and will struggle just to stand on a perch. The flapping part of flying is instinctive but steering and landing have to be learned, and at first he'll crash into things a lot. If you take him out of the cage, have his playtime in a room that isn't too big and doesn't have dangerous things to crash into, like uncovered windows and big mirrors. When birds can fly in a straight line for a long distance they get faster and faster as they go along, and build up a lot of speed. In a small room they can't go very far before they have to turn, so they can't go too fast. Babies learn about walls the hard way, by crashing into them, and this is a lot safer if they aren't going too fast.

Boys don't start showing male behavior until they're a few months old, so it's too soon to try and figure out the sex right now. The wing spot method is accurate more than half the time, but it also lies sometimes so don't be too confident about the results. You can read about it here: http://www.internationalcockatielresour ... tiels.html

My heart is very sad for your loss. I can feel your pain and wish it could be taken away.

As I read all of the posts, I could see how hard you were trying to help your little chick and how much you cared. You did your very best, you asked help from people you knew had a lot of knowlege about birds and you got the help of a professional who unfortunately was not able to help. Please do not be hard on yourself--you did not want this to end the way it did and you gave your very best. I AM SO SO SORRY. FEEL THE HUGS I AM SENDING YOU.

Enjoy your chick you still have. I am so glad for the help you are getting because it is of benefit to me as I help my parent birds raise their young ones. There are few places you can go for help that can give you the detail that is so helpful such as what to expect when the chick fledges and how to prepare for it.

If you have big windows, you might want to stick some tape on the glass so that the baby will not think of them as a place to fly into.
The first thing my chicks did was to fly straight into the big window, but after I stuck a big X of tape on it they immediately stopped doing it.

The very best thing to do with windows is to close the blinds or drapes if possible. You can hang a bedsheet over a big mirror.

If you have ceiling fans, make sure they're turned off when the birds are out. There was a memorable incident on another group where a baby's first flight was straight into a ceiling fan, so it was his last flight too. My vet says he sees a lot of birds who were hurt flying into ceiling fans, and those are just the ones who survived - the number killed is probably more. Fledglings seem to have an instinctive urge to fly up high and land on whatever they can find that looks sort of like a tree branch. In my house that mostly means the ceiling fans, although they'll occasionally land on top of a wooden picture frame. I keep a ladder in the hallway during the fledgling stage because I need it to get them down.



It's very desirable to let babies learn to fly well. It's good for their physical health and development, and it's also good for their mental health - they learn confidence and they also learn how to make decisions about things like where to go and how to get there. Once they have the skills it's OK to clip them if that's your preference. A bird that doesn't learn flying skills as a baby will have a hard time learning it later on, and usually won't be as strong or skillful as a bird that learned it at the natural age.

@Carolyn,
The baby has already started coming out of the nestbox! Every time I put him back in, he always comes right back out. So I just gave up and let the bird have its way. I also take him out and place him on my finger for balance exercises and he can balance on my finger quite well. I actually keep all of my birds in my bedroom, so no fans. Its really funny because whenever Gracie is flying around, if she comes to my door and its open, she won't go out. She just never goes out of my room when she's flying. . Well, that's a bummer. Maybe I will try the wing spot method because I really need to know.


@Delawaregirl,
Thank you so much for the sympathy. I really appreciate it hugs coming back to ya!


@Barbara,
Thanks, I do have a window. I will try that with the tape. We have really big windows on the front of the house. Just last week a beautiful woodpecker died because he hit our windows. It is so sad. I can't imagine if one of my baies hit a window and passed from it.


@Carolyn,
I don't have any blinds or drapes on my window. I don't have a ceiling fan in my bedroom, so I think thats out of the picture. I'm sorry about what happened to one of your babies. I actually prefer my birds wings to be clipped, but I think I have read that before about babies. I was going to let her learn to fly first.

My baby actually has yellow spots on its chest........is that normal?