Hand rearing Blue fronted Amazons
The 2002 breeding season saw our first breeding success from some of our young stock.
This particular pairing was from a 4 year old male and a 3 year old female.
The pair was extremely bonded with equal dominancy and had done everything right the previous year apart from laying eggs.
This time, in their first clutch, there were four eggs, all were fertile and all eggs hatched. Although the hen was sitting well the eggs were taken for incubation and hand rearing.
The aim was to see if she would lay again, but the season was in one of the worst droughts in 30 years and they did well to have even the first clutch.
These are photos from the first chicks.
Technical hatching and handrearing data:
Hatching details:
As mentioned earlier, the eggs were taken but after the last or fourth egg was laid.
This meant that two eggs were showing colour when they were taken and giving us an indication that there was going to be some fertility. We didn't expect all four eggs to be fertile. The eggs were incubated in a Grumbach automatic turning and humidity control incubator. The incubator turns the rolling mechanism off for half an hour and then turns on for 15 minutes. The humidity was set for 50% and the temperature was 37.2 degrees, incubation went from 23 to 24 days between chicks.The biggest surprise was the pip to hatch time, which was an incredible 60 hours and one chick went for 72 hours before it decided to come out of the egg! I panicked with the first egg and opened it after 50 hours to see if all was okay, only taking the top off the egg. The chick was quite content to stay like that till it was time to get cracking, so to speak, and emerged some 10 hours later. This is from 10 to 22 hours later than what you can expect from a Black Cockatoo or any Australian parrot. After no further problems all chicks hatched un-assisted and all weighed about 17 grams.
Hand rearing details:
I looked through my whole parrot library collection to find a weight chart to compare and did not find anything that was not outdated by 15 years. Weights were also considerably lower than we were getting probably due to better commercial hand- rearing mixes these days.
The chicks were given Hartmanns Solution for the first 36 hours till no egg yolk was left in the chick. At this time the chick doesn't require any food and it is a lot more important to hydrate the chicks than to feed them. We hydrate chicks every 2 hours up till at least 12 pm and we start safely again the next day at 6 am to make up the 36 hours. In some chicks the hydration may take longer depending on the hatch and the amount of egg yolk left in the chick after the hatch. At this stage the chicks have had no food of any kind, not yoghurt or Ensure or anything of that description, it is purely cleaned out and hydrated. After the hydrating the young are ready for food in the form of Hartmanns solution and the handrearing mix of preference in a very diluted form. The hand rearing mix we use is 50% Lakes and 50% Roudybush formula.
Weight chart for these four Blue fronted Amazons.
DATE 1 2 3 4
COMMENTS - based on the first chick !
2-11-02
12
Hydrating with Hartmanns (HM) Solution.
3-11-02
12
Lakes (L) - Roudybush (RB) - HM 50% - 50% Water (W)
4-11-02
14 12
Humidity 60% Temp 36 degrees
5-11-02
14
14
Last feed 12 pm.
6-11-02
19
14
12
Medium thick food.
7-11-02
21
16
12
Digesting well.
8-11-02 30
22
14 L & RB & W
9-11-02 38
31
18 4 Feeds a day - 12 pm.last feed.
10-11-02 45
32
22 8 mls. per feed.
11-11-02 52
39
30
12
12-11-02 69
50
38
12 14 mls. per feed
13-11-02 77
57
44
13 3 Feeds a day.
14-11-02 87
70
53
15 Eyes are starting to slit.
15-11-02 100
82
62
17 18 mls. per feed.
16-11-02 115
96
70
18 Eyes open first chick.
17-11-02 123
112
83
22 Pin feathers showing through the skin.
18-11-02 141
128
96
29 26 mls. per feed.
19-11-02 156
140
108
32 Closed rung at 17 days old.
20-11-02 171
153
123
35 Young tranferred to cardboard box-
21-11-02 190
171
137
46 and put on wood shavings.
22-11-02 211
184
150
58 (Young had been in plastic-
23-11-02 231
204
174
67 containers and on serviettes or-
24-11-02 243
213
187
75 kitchen towel up to this point).
25-11-02 261
237
202
90 38 mls. per feed
26-11-02 277
245
216
98 Pins 10 mm long.
27-11-02 300
270
240
118 42 mls. per feed.
28-11-02 317
287
264
127
29-11-02 314
282
258
146
30-11-02 337
314
285
163 45 mls. per feed.
01-12-02 355
334
305
189
02-12-02 363
341
318
197
03-12-02 385
355
327
219 50 mls. per feed.
04-12-02 396
366
340
230
05-12-02 399
383
350
251 55 mls. per feed.
06-12-02 395
378
360
259 2 Feeds a day for all.
07-12-02 420
408
390
255
08-12-02 417
378
408
285
09-12-02 420
415
400
310
10-12-02 425
420
398
325
11-12-02 426
421
399
330 60 mls. per feed.
12-12-02 437
427
420
346
13-12-02 442
437
421
356
14-12-02 434
431
398
349 65 mls. per feed, max for these chicks.
15-12-02 433
437
415
368
16-12-02 446
440
428
378
17-12-02 451
449
430
390
18-12-02 446
450
430
390
19-12-02 452 *
456 *
440 *
406 * * Top weight! *.
20-12-02 434
440
429
400 Weaning starts
21-12-02 427
436
420
380 from this point onwards.
22-12-02 431
439
430
382
28-12-02 432
428
418
398
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