Baby Parrot Pictures!

My first clutch of baby Senegals:



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This is Spanky, Darla's clutchmate. He's very young still, just weaned:



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Baby African grey parrots at four weeks:



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Baby African grey parrots at five weeks:



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Baby African grey parrots between seven and eight weeks old: "Are we birds yet?"



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Bowl O' Senegals:



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Tub O' Greys:



These guys have just fledged, but probably didn't wean until four-to-six weeks later. There's a long period of dependency in a lot of parrot species.

Thanks for the photos. I watched many clutches of chicks being raised.

...yet they remain babies even when fully grown. :) The larger parrots stay in the "baby" stage for years. They're silly and clumsy and everything is new and exciting.

What kinds of chicks did you see raised? They're all wonderful, IMO.

I had a pair of Diamond Doves who attempted to mate..no babies. I kept hoping.
I had a pair of budgies that kept having albinos (they were blue and green!) with white feathers and red eyes. Both of them were great parents. It was amazing to watch.

...and lutinos. We'd hand feed those too, so they'd get extra tame. We kept a number of them around for years.

I have never seen baby parrots before! Those are great! :D

They begin life with just a small amount of down which is replaced in two to three weeks by a full layer of down. They look like woolly sheep until the pinfeathers come in, then they look a bit like porcupines. When the feathers just erupt, I called it the "paintbrush stage," because it looked like the parrots had little paintbrushes all over their bodies.

Once they could fly, things got scary because I never knew when one of them was going to take off and maybe hurt itself flying into a window or some other fatal object. Ideally, I think they should be allowed to learn to fly, but after Gilligan the grey whacked his head on the sliding-glass door, I had a strict "always clip" policy. The house was just not set up for flying. :(

I raised so many babies I lost count. My last clutch of greys included a youngster named Anakin with a lot of reddish purple suffused through his plumage. He had a congenital heart defect and died in my hands at the vet's office. It was one of the things that led me to give up aviculture. There were many other issues, but losing babies is so heart-rending.

I also wonder about the emotional health of African greys in captivity. There's something we don't know about these highly sensitive and intelligent birds. They often become feather-pluckers and the reasons still aren't very clear. It made my heart ache when one of my babies developed this problem. My gut feeling is that there is a biological as well as a psychological root cause or causes. There is no one reason these birds start plucking. I felt responsible for every failure and just couldn't take it anymore.

That's so sad. Poor little thing.
African greys are so bright, I've always wanted one but knew I didn't have the time for one.
I'm taking an ornithology class this semester and am amazed at how unique and special birds are. The A. greys especially, given how intellegent they are.

There is something we don't know, but I don't think we're causing it.

Check out the book or movie, The Parrots of Telegraph Hill, which tells the tale of the wild parrots of San Francisco. In the book (a true story) one of the parrots is a feather plucker even though it's a free-flying wild parrot.

The conservation movement is a breeding ground of communists
and other subversives. We intend to clean them out,
even if it means rounding up every birdwatcher in the country.
--John Mitchell, US Attorney General 1969-72

It was excellent. I loved watching those birds and their interactions with each other and with the man.

:)

in the lives of Pale Male and Lola, the redtail Hawks that have a nest atop one of the skyscapers near Central Park in Manhattan?

http://www.palemale.com/

Here they are in their nest. They are sitting on 2 eggs at the present time.

Thanks for sharing that site. What beautiful birds, I hope they are sucessful with their babies.

That pale redtail is a fabulous specimen. When I lived in Fresno there was a redtail in the vicinity that was nearly white. His/her mate was darker. I often wished I had a pair of binoculars to get a better look at the white hawk.

I don't think I've ever seen pictures of baby parrots before...Damn, they're cute!

:kick:

I have a cute stories about my baby.

I keep her very socialized in case something happens to me. I am single and have chronic Lyme disease. Lyme disease can cause short term memory loss, one day, I couldn't remember how to spell "of". It was funny, I looked up ov, ove in the dictionary.

Anyways, I was changing her water and the phone rang. I completely forgot about her water. She went like five hours without and when I went to feed her dins (dinner), and saw she had no water, I freaked.

She watches me in the kitchen, and when I open the refrig door, I hear want a grape, want a cherry, want cheese? So, I decided to teach her want water. Every time I get her water (with ice cubes, she loves 'em), I took her to the refrigerator with you want water.

It's been 3 weeks, and I forgot her water again, (only 1 1/2 hrs.), and I was actually putting the cubes in her bowl, and she said want wat, want wat? She is the most amazing entity that I have ever met.

They speak so clearly and with meaning. I never get tired of hearing African greys go on and on and on. :)

My parrot just calls my name and screams if he doesn't have something. Sometimes if I'm eating something, he'll say, "Want this?" or "Want that?"

It's like having an infant. I have to figure out what he's missing. I love him dearly. He is my baby.

It sounds like you're doing a fantastic job with your grey. How old is she? Do you have a pic?

My Amazon will be 18 next month. :)

She will be 7 years on June 14th or 15th. They had both dates on her paper work. So, I say, she cracked the egg on the 14th, and crawled out on the 15th. Maybe I got one of your babies. I know that she likes Blondie females with light eyes. (I am female and not hitting on you!!, joke).

My old neighbors (moved) have an Amazon. They had 2 cats, a dog, an Iguana, the bird and many, many lively plants. It was a house of love, you could just feel it walking in the front door. The bird freaking amazed me. At 4 yrs., she sang over 40 songs. One of them Under the Boardwalk. They are a little older than me.

Anyways, I went to look at birds, with the thought of maybe getting one. I knew greys were smart, but, I thought that I wanted a colorful, pretty bird. I looked at all of them. The Greys are not the most beautiful on the outside (my joke is, she looks like a pigeon who stuck it's tail in a red ink well), but, now, she is the most beautiful thing in the world to me.

I remember thinking, God, I want a bird that talks. Then, I thought, how selfish is that. So, I prayed, that I would love the one that I got.

When they took her out of the display case, pretty hi-tech place, and she stepped up on my lower arm, she tore butt up to my shoulder and placed her little head under my chin. I felt so loved.

But, I am a shopper and thinker so, the next day I went to another store and checked out their selection. On the way home from the other store, I knew that she was special and immediately spent the $2000. (Cage, toys food, bird) for her.

I would like your opinion on selling very young birds. I brought her home at a little less than 2 months. I had to go to the store and hand feed her, till they thought I was competent. I prayed really hard before every feeding that I wouldn't aspirate her. I think the early feedings is where the real bonding occurred, but the experts say that that is too early. In defense of the store, they deterred customers, if they even had the slightest inkling about the buyers. I saw them deterring sales of Eclectus, grey and cockatoos on various occasions, because they didn't have faith the potential owner really wanted to care for the bird.

To readers, she has given me more, than I could ever expect from this life. She always says, I Love You, I love you mommy. WOW. What an AWESOME creature.

edited for grammer

Acquiring a parrot is an awesome responsibility. My head spins sometimes when I think about how big a responsibility it is. It sounds like you did the right thing in acquiring your youngster and the store sounds extremely reputable.

From what I've seen, parrots can easily shift bonds after they are weaned. Gabby came to live with me when he was about four months old and fully weaned, yet he bonded with me very quickly. An older bird can shift bonds, too, if the new owner is persistant.

There are two types of birds: precocial birds and altricial birds. Precocial birds are the species that can get up and follow mom and dad very soon after hatching. Geese, ducks, quail and chickens are examples of precocial birds. Precocial birds have a crucial period of time in which they must "imprint" on the parent birds. Altricial birds hatch very underdeveloped and the bonding process takes place much more slowly and isn't permanently "imprinted" on the young bird's mind. That's why many "second-hand" parrots are success stories.

As for the store, if they educated you, it was probably OK to take her home at 8 weeks, although that is the age when the chick's crop starts shrinking. It's a scary time for the uninitiated. The chick begins to refuse food and lose weight in preparation for flight. A good aviculturist keeps a close eye on the chick during this critical time.

I could tell you horror stories about people losing birds--especially cockatoos--because their "weaned" babies stressed out when the new owner took them home. They reverted to wanting to be fed. The weaning stage is full of pitfalls. That's why most aviculturists wait until the bird is eating well on its own and urge the new owner to monitor the bird's weight.

Luckily, I never aspirated a chick when I was hand-feeding. I used a bit of Crisco Oil on the plunger of the syringe so it would move smoothly and not catch. I had someone help me feed the first clutch of Senegals and found out she was close to worthless. The babies came back after a couple of days and all of them were underweight. The youngest had a crop burn. :mad: I finished them out, myself, but I still feel anger. She never helped with Chrissy's vet bills and never paid me for a picture I drew for her. What a flake!

It's wonderful that she loves you so much.

We could use a photo. :D

But now I must raise an important thought,
that I hope is taken with all good intent.
Do you sell birds? I have rescued 6 birds...
4 sun conures and 2 'Toos.....love them all dearly.
Since I've heard the excuse "I didn't know how much work they would be" I'm kinda anti-bird breeding atm.....there are just so many unwanteds out there.
Your pics are adorable!
Trish

They changed ownership. The store Valle Birds in Turnersville, NJ still has the hi-tech display cases. That's where I got my BABEE.

Here's the story. The old owner, re-financed and bought a new house and then got a divorce. The employees, said, he lost interest in the store.

Then the envirocare/pet focus, anti-septic, that I had been buying for years, was not even present on the shelves and the food that I had raised her on. You know, Greys, food transition, is difficult.

She did lodge complaints, but I was there to courter. That is alot of changes for a bird.

I stopped going there and stopped in last week. It is still a bird store, but, I could not recommend them. They have very few parrots and alot of tiels. It is almost like the pet store that tried to sell high end birds, 2600.00 for $2500,00. (Every bird in the store bit me, to the too, bit really hard, and I like birds).

So many people exploit their parrots. My baby's name is Afrika.

She is from Africa, and a great representative. There are alto of East and West Africans in my area. It is really cool. They approach me with respect, but they respect her too. They see my bird and it reminds them of home.

Imagine being in a foreign country and hear a pretty little bird say, God loves you. They all cry at her presence, this Little bird, who in the wilds of the Congo., just said God Love You.

I had to give up breeding birds several years ago for a variety of reasons:

1. I wasn't physically well
2. I was getting burned out
3. I was suffering guilt for a variety of reasons: pulling the chicks, finding good homes to sell them to, etc.
4. I moved my birds to an outdoor building and the Senegals reacted by killing chicks. The greys became less productive.
5. I couldn't stand the failures: the death of Anakin and the mutilated Senegal babies.

I can relate to your sentiments. Because of my illnesses, I am going to have to place my eleven-year-old Senegal in an adoption agency. There are a lot of "unwanted" birds that need good homes. Darla, my Senegal, is wanted, but because of my illnesses, she has suffered some neglect. I feel a lot of guilt, but The Gabriel Foundation assures me she will go to only the best home.

Second-hand parrots CAN make excellent companion birds. We also need to educate new bird owners about behavioral problems and how to prevent them. Solving them is important, too, but it's much easier to prevent than to solve. If the adoption agency works on behavioral problems, even a new parrot owner can learn to handle a second-hand bird. From now on I'm going to suggest adoption agencies rather than breeders for people who are looking for parrots.

The Gabriel Foundation is where I'm sending Darla and it's a phenomenal place.

Also, IMHO, if we're going to keep parrots as pets, we need to think about domesticating them by breeding only the most adaptable. If a bird begins to bite, scream or pick its feathers, it usually goes into a breeding program. I wonder if we're breeding birds that are even MORE likely to bite, scream and pluck. :shrug:

I knew of only one breeder who was interested in trying to domesticate. He specialized in Panama Amazons, a subspecies of yellow-front. Recently, I tried to get in touch with him, only to run into a brick wall. I have no idea what happened to him. When I last talked with him, he was breeding for adaptability, intelligence and talking ability and was having great success. He would NOT sell his best babies. He kept all of them back for breeding.

Just some thoughts from an ex-aviculturist...

I especially love the African greys!

Thanks for posting their pictures.