New member!

[KirstySA]

Hi everyone! I am new to the forum, and I think I had a baptism of fire into the world of Amazon Parrots! I am helping my Dentist out while I look for a nice new job. His hobby is breeding Amazons. I bet you know where this is going! In November I was presented with 3 tiny babies to feed and, of course, fall hopelessly in love with! They were about 2 weeks old, I hand reared them and they have turned into beautiful 4 month old sweethearts! The Doctor wants me to take Jake home and love him because he is one of the few birds here without a mate, there are about 20 breeding pairs here. Doctor is very surprised at how tame I have got the babies, to me when a bird is hand reared, it is this tame. He has decided to keep the 3 of them, so I get to take them home and enjoy their different personalities!

[Pajarita]

Hi, Kirsty and thank you for helping the babies but, my dear, I have to tell you that I was horrified when I read on your post that the breeder had taken 2 week old babies from their parents. It's usually done at 6 to 8 weeks, especially for large species which stay in the nest for months and months and remain with them for years after they leave the nest. Personally, I recommend co-parenting instead. We have no studies yet but anecdotal evidence tells us that It works as well as 'regular' handfeeding and it's not cruel to the parents (they actually mourn the babies that were stolen from them - imagine having your babies stolen from you time after time after time...) and much, much healthier both physically and emotionally for the babies. See this: https://www.beautyofbirds.com/coparenting.html