Chicks hatch from eggs blind, they are covered with sparse down or even naked and unable to feed on their own. During the entire period of the chicks being in the nest and several weeks after its abandonment, the parents bring them new portions of food. To raise a chick on your own, you will have to fully devote about 20 days of your life to it.
Until the chick begins to feed on its own, caring for it will take a quarter of every hour. In the daytime, it must be fed until it is fully saturated every 20 minutes. To understand whether the chick is full is simple - having eaten, he will stop begging for food, opening his mouth.
Raising chicks of owls, predators, duck, chickens is a less complicated matter. These birds have a less intensive metabolism, and many of them are born ready for independent life.
Features of feeding singers
Particular attention should be paid to the composition of the food. It is important to remember that most songbirds feed their chicks with insects. If the adopted child belongs to songbirds, it should be fed with what adult insectivorous birds eat: fly larvae, mealworms, ant cocoons, as well as cottage cheese, carrots and chicken eggs. Do not forget about mineral and vitamin supplements. You can raise chicks by feeding them with ant cocoons alone, but you cannot grow them on one chicken egg.
It is convenient to serve food with tweezers. Already from the first feeding, it is necessary to ensure that the pet opens its beak on its own. To do this, when bringing the tweezers, you need to shake the nest or touch the corners of the beak, the plumage of the head with tweezers. Starting at 15 days of age, the food is scattered over the bottom of the cage. When the chick learns to peck at the scattered food, you can install a feeder in the cage. But they stop feeding the chick from tweezers only when he learns to gorge himself until he is full. From now on, he will need a more spacious cage in which to fly and run.
Chicks of falcon, owl and hawk should be fed with slaughtered day old chicks or poultry meat.
Features of feeding finches
Chicks of the finch family (greenfinch, bullfinch, goldfinch, linnet) can only be fed with the help of other finches. This is due to the fact that the food brought by the parents is mechanically processed in the beak and moistened with saliva containing enzymes. Without this, digestion in chicks is not developed.
You can raise a finch chick with the help of a domesticated canary. To do this, you need to remove her clutch from the nest and put the newly hatched chicks there. The canary will willingly feed the chicks while they are in the nest. But after his abandonment, some individuals stop feeding the fosterlings.
Raising chicks of owls, predators, duck, chickens is a less complicated matter. These birds have a less intensive metabolism, and many of them are born ready for independent life.
Caring for chicks
Since a small pet has to be fed very often, you should always be near or carry it with you. While the chick is small and cannot escape, you can keep it in a small container or box. If the fledgling chick is only 4-5 days old from the moment it hatches, it is important to provide warmth. The easiest way to arrange it in the form of a heating pad from a flattened plastic bottle.
Starting from 9-12 days, when the chick tries to leave the "nest", it is better to place it in a small cage. Regardless of where it is kept, the chick should have dry, soft bedding suitable for moss or dried grass. If they are not at hand, you can lay cotton wool for the first time. In this case, it is important to constantly monitor that the chick does not get entangled in the fibers. Change the litter as it gets dirty.
