April 4, 2010
The black mites appear to be under control since I do not see any signs of them. I plan to treat the birds and spray the cages again when it is time to do so in a couple of weeks.
The single chick is now 21 days old and appears to be doing well. It was moved to the same cage as the two older chicks shown below.
The two older chicks are now 25 days old. The chick in the foreground is still begging for food and is being fed through the wire divider by the cock bird. The chick in the back seems to be a little quicker and is eating on its own and no longer begs for food. The wire divider is used to protect the chicks from their parents. The cock and/or hen will start to pluck feathers from the chicks at about 17 to 19 days old. Notice that the chick in the back has some missing feathers on the top of its head. The parent birds had already started to pluck before I got a chance to put the wire divider in place. The hen usually pluck the chick's feathers to make a new nest and the male plucks the chick's feathers to chase them away from the nest. I guess it is mother nature's way of forcing the chicks to learn to eat on their own. The problem with the cage is that the chicks and parents can only keep apart from each other as far as the two furthest corners of the cage so the chicks have no where to go when they are being plucked or are attacked. The mother of these two birds laid her 4th egg today and is now incubating the eggs.
