34 day old baby macaw help

Jan 20, 2012

34 day old baby macaw help
by: Linda

A large box may have enough air, and your bird needs not only plenty fresh air, and also needs to be able to see his family. You can also use a cage for his brooder, and wrap a heating pad around one side with a low to medium setting. You'll need to tape it down, so put cover on 3 sides of cage and tape heating pad bottom to the cover, so baby does not have access to cord. Keep cage partially covered during the day like three sides with front open. At night cover cage front as well leaving a few inches at bottom for air circulation. If he is already getting in some feathers, he should do fine on the low setting if your house is kept at least 70-72 degrees F. You may want to keep using the brooding box until he is fully feathered, then you can move him into the larger cage situation.

Weight is something you'll need to talk with an Avian Vet about, and you should be weighing him everyday with a gram scale. If he does not gain some weight everyday, then he has an infection and needs to be diagnosed and treated by an Avian Vet ONLY. If this was me instead of you, I'd go ahead and take him for an exam to make sure all is well.

As for putting him in a cage when he is fully feathered, you can use either his cage or one not quite as large(he needs room to spread his wings completely out to the sides and flap) with no grate in the bottom so he can sit on newspaper with no print on it. You can find unprinted newspaper at your local newspaper office as they have ends of rolls that still have a lot of paper but not enough to do another run for paper, so they put them aside to sell. These are cheap, clean and absorbent. The unprinted paper is safe for a baby. You'll want to make sure cage is not too warm, I'd say keep it around 75 degrees F once he's fully covered with feathers. Once he is fully covered, he can be covered at night to hold in his warmth or during the day too if your home is not warm enough. His environment, once he is fully feathered, needs to be 70-73 degrees F all the time. You can stop using the heating pad once he's fully covered unless your home is cold. Wait until he's fully covered to move him into cage and keep an eye on him for fluffing up and such which means he's cold.

Keep in touch and thanks for writing,
Linda

34 day old baby macaw help

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34 day old baby macaw help

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