Dasher moves on!

Dasher has gone off to the great world beyond the nest box!  I took him to the store yesterday to be handfed for the rest of his budgie-childhood and be weaned onto pellets just like the big-birds.  To be sure, he was scared (and MAD!) being taken from his family and thrust into an aquarium with several other little birds, but he's growing into such a pretty bird I'm hoping that someone will snap him up soon.

Dasher shortly before moving to the store.

Ricky and Lucy have now hatched not three, not four, but FIVE babies!  That's quite a clutch for any birdie, much less a first time mom, and she's got one possibly fertile egg that could still hatch.  There's over a weeks difference in age between the oldest and youngest in the clutch which is requiring me to keep a close watch on the chicks.  From what I've read and heard the youngest are subject to several perils which include:  1) Overfeeding which stretches out their crop, causes atonia and results in the baby starving to death with a full crop; and 2) Dehydration from being fed food meant for the older chicks.  (New chicks are fed a more liquid food than older chicks.)  It's amazing how tiny the newest chicks are when they hatch.

                        

            Oldest on left, youngest on bottom.

This is the smallest chick from the photo
to the left. (My hands are the size of the
average 10 year old's.)

And in other news... Mr. and Mrs. Closet Finch (so named because they're living in what used to be a closet) currently have three eggs in one of their three nests.  I hesitate to get too very excited about this because at no time when I've been in the bird room have I seen either Mr. or Mrs. Finch anywhere near said eggs!  But the news is significant because while they have laid single eggs before, they've never laid more than one before they've eaten it.  This is the first time I've seen more than one egg in the nest. I've been feeding them crushed egg shells and egg food so perhaps that is making a difference.  We'll see, wont we?

That's all for tonight!  

Until nest time just do like the birds do - shake your tail feathers and keep on chirpin'!