A reason why the unexperienced should not breed! MY PERSONAL experience!

[BrilliantFids]

Ok lets keep this civil, this is not about breeding or not. This is my experience, something im dealing with right now.

I have six adorable baby budgies right now, they are sweet, cute and healthy! Well with that said you would think that would mean this is going to be a fun experience for me right? EH WRONG! Now im not complaining becuase I choose to breed Kona and hagrid, so i will own up to my responsability here and do what must be done becuase of my choice.

Today I went to check on the babies and discovered baby number 4 (the one who was born on the day my grandfather passed away) outside of the nestbox shrieking his/her little head off, so I picked up said baby and it was FREEZING cold and its crop was empty. First thing I did was open the nest box and stick him inside where it is nice and coxy warm, then I checked each of the other five babies crops, all empty! So what does this mean? It means one of two things either A) Mom has slacked on her feedings or B) she is neglecting them totally now. So I have two choices either I leave them for a while and see if she feeds them, or I pull them all and hand raise them myself. Now I never ever hand feed my budgies unless I have to because they are so small and risky to feed, the chance of aspirating them is much higher than a little bigger baby. But I also didnt want to leave them unfed, so I choose to pull them and hand feed them for the duration of their little babyhood. You may ask why this is such a big deal, I bred them so why should I not want to feed them? Well as I already stated handfeeding them is much harder than say a tiel (even though tiels are very high risk for crop infections, slow crop...etc..) One drop of formula that goes in wrong could kill these little guys!! So thats all on my hands, their future and wether they live or survive is now on me. The youngest one just opened its little eyes, wich means he will need more feedings than the older babies. The older babies are at feedings every 2 hours, though tonight its a little more often since they were so hungry when I pulled them, the little guy will need to be fed every hour round the clock. So you figure it takes around 30 minutes to prepare the food and feed all six babies, so by the time im done feeding them that leaves me 30 minutes inbetween the youngest babies next feeding. So where am I going with this? Do you know how little sleep Im going to have until these young babies get a little older? Also with that little sleep it makes the risk for aspiration that much bigger, tired people make far more mistakes, they get sloppy in what they do or try to rush. So I guess what im trying to say is if you cant handle a schedule like that or your a person who needs your solid 8 hours of sleep, DO NOT let accidents happen with your fids! How would you feel if you were raising 6 babies and one did not make it due to your own error? Not good Ill tell you that much, I have in the past lost one baby due to my own mistakes, I was uneducated and tried to raise a clutch of tiels..though I did not breed them, i saved them from being thrown in the trash..so it was try it or they faced certain death. It tore me up when that baby died, I blamed myself for trying to move to fast to get them fed so I could sleep. I learned alot from my mistake, i have not lost another baby since, i do not slack if im tired or even sick. just htink most people get the weekends off from work or at least a couple days, then you can go have fun or rest while your off right? Well raising baby birds it doesnt matter if your sick, you have a vacation planned, its a holiday, your birthday or what have you! There are not days off, there are not hours off even. For the next few weeks until these babies are fully weaned and fledged My life is aboutnothing more than them, If I go shopping I will have 1 hour to get there and get home, I have 6 lives depending on that! Could YOU do that? If not PLEASE do not ever consider breeding your birds!

[EriNes11]

Well said bfids well said.   Best of luck to you and your cuties!!

[Mi Amore]

i want to take the time to say that bfids is one of the most dedicated fid parronts i know! she learned from a mistake and isnt afraid to admit she made one! thanks bfids for taking care of my little gianni!~ keep in mind if you need help with something i will do the best i can to help out! i know that i would never be able to do what you do! why you ask? because i am not afraid to say that i dont know how to handfeed. i am more then willing to learn how but i dont want to risk the lives of a baby fid due to lack of knowledge! now if we were talking about hand raising a dog or bunny i know how to do that have lots of experience with that so if you all have any questions how to do that i am here for ya!
so again a huge thanks and appreciation goes out to BFIDS! afro.gif angel.gif

[zimbasmom]

Wow I am tired just reading that, sounds like you have your work cut out for you, best of luck.

[BPMar]

Not my expertise.  I had alot of help with feeding when I thought I may need it and thank goodness I didn't.  Good luck!

[sophiemae]

Good luck with the babies  afro.gif I know you are going to be tired and then some, just keep your eye on the finish line when they take that first flight of independence. When I breed my keets way back when I was 14 I learned from a mistake as well. I went to candle the eggs to see if they were fertile and on the second one it slipped from my hands, landed back in the nesting box and cracked. I felt just awful that I had just killed this little life that never even got a chance due to my clumsiness. It's a hard lesson to learn, but one that sticks with you forever. I didn't know much about birds back then, I was armed with only a how to book on keets and I feel I'm lucky that the other five hatched and momma raised them fully. I shutter to think what may have happened had she not. Education and learning from the experiences of others is so important, had I known then what I know now things would have been much different.

[chance]

BF I want to tell you how very proud I am of you right now for this post, You came clean and told it how it is,Thank you !
I wish you nothing but luck with the babies, If I were closer I would help, god knows I don't sleep anymore anyway !

[wishforabird]

That is why handfed babies cost more from the breeders! blood sweat and tears! It reminds me of when I was nursing...

[BrilliantFids]

I feel that often people only see the cute little babies that breeders have, they dont know the things they go through while raising them. Dont get me wrong I enjoy watching them grow, but it is a scary process. One little thing goes wrong and the babies I care so much about will be gone and it would be all on my shoulders. Thanks for all the comments guys, I do hope this post will help somebody in the future that is considering breeding realize just how much you really have to put into it, and that its not something that is as fun as it may seem.