Surfeit Of Cockatoos

[den]

That sounds like a collective noun, but it describes my current situation. For some reason we've had a run of cocky rescues and everyone who can care for the birds has several. I've taken up the overflow, and have three. One is an aviary escapee who can talk, which is why the wild birds beat the crap out of him.

The other two are very young. They're fully feathered but they aren't old enough to fly or eat seed. So guess who is mum? That's right, it's a dessert spoon. The young ones don't care which human has the spoon as long as the spoon has parrot porridge dripping from the end. They squawk and fight and guzzle, the porridge mostly goes down hungry beaks and often ends up on me.


The youngest of the pair is constantly begging for food from the older one, but she ignores him. She's busy cracking her own seeds. I hope she teaches him to do the same. Raising them together is far far better than raining them on their own. They'll grow up thinking they're sulfur-crested cockatoos instead of humans.

Which is how it should be.

---

Last day of work today. I'm sort-of unemployed apart from the odd bit of casual work I can get off Dad's company. Next week I netwrok the office and install a WAP for the laptop. I've registered for Social Security, but I probably won't need to collect anything until after christmas.

Comments

[beki.livejournal.com]

Does this mean we cant put you in a big assed chicken (cockatoo?) suit???? :)

Sorry to hear about the job situation. That so sucks.

[dewhitton.livejournal.com]

I don't do suits.

[tavella.livejournal.com]

What will happen to the aviary escapee? Won't the other birds beat him up again if he/she is released?

[dewhitton.livejournal.com]

The escapee can't go back into the wild. It'll be the death of him. Wild parrots HATE escapees who talk human.

[frith]

Ah? You use a spoon? I recall using a syringe and rubber gavage tube to feed macaws. (On a side note, when force feeding a ruminant don't ever [i]ever[/i] force the liquid into the animal. Always let it drain in by gravity, otherwise it [u]will[/u] get into the lings and you will have a very dead ungulate within twelve hours.)

[dewhitton.livejournal.com]

Spoons are easier to sterilize, and quick to "reload" with the next lot of food. It's a bit messy but it works and it's fast so the chick spends less time in contact with me. The slightly older chick is cracking seed like a maniac and I'm hoping she'll show him that seeds are better than spoons and he'll start to self-feed soon. And the best part about having two is that they'll grow up not thinking they're humans. I noticed this morning they're preening each other, which is a good sign.

Once they're both eating seed I'll pass them on to someone with a large aviary for flight training rehab, then they'll go back into the wild population.

(Will you mind that I've added you to me "Interesting People" list? I like reading about professional animal keepers. I'm just an amature volunteer.)

[frith]

Sure, that would be swell. 8-) No need to ask. If I didn't want people to read/comment on my LJ, I'd make it private.

Hmmm, I'll admit that there is merit to your madness... We use large capacity syringes and disinfect them in, er... (a clear solution whose name escapes me) between feedings. Drat, I can almost smell the stuff. *snaps fingers* Well, anyway, the same goes for bottles and nipples used to hand rear mammals as well -- left to soak in disinfectant between feedings. [b]But[/b] with my fawns I never disinfect. I house them all together and feed them bowls of dirt from day one (gut flora and minerals). Disinfecting only increases the proliferation of resistant bacteria.

[frith]

The stuff's called Hibitane. Let's check the web... Yup, here: http://www.vetproductsonline.com/productinfo.asp?productcode=738

[dewhitton.livejournal.com]

I have a container I can load up with water, animal bottles and teats and place in the microwave. 30 minutes of steam should do the trick.

I don't usually get large mammals like wallabies and kangaroos, but I *do* get bats and echidnas. The bats are adults and only need meal worms and hang-space, and echidnas don't need teats.

People who think platypuses are weird have never looked after an echidna.

[frith]

Echidnas, one of three species of egg-laying monotremes. I geek!! 8-]

I only do deer. I really have to worship a critter to put that much energy into hand-rearing and releasing it. ^_^ You don't get any flying foxes? At work we have one roussette (Pteropus giganteus). For unknown reasons, he won't/cannot fly.

[dewhitton.livejournal.com]

In this area the little red flying foxes Pteropus scapulatus migrate here for summer. I only see adults, and they're always entangled in barbed wire. None have survived being disentangled, and sometimes they're so badly injured I euthanase them on the wire.

I'd love to have some of the other larger ones in this area but we're too far from the coast.