Interesting observation about young in the nest!

[tonytoast]

Currently I am housing two pair of Gouldian in a breeding box which is about 2 x 2 x 1 and have two hollow logs on each side leading to an external nesting box (for observation)...above the external nesting boxes is a roof and the gap between the box and the roof is about 15cm - too small to stick my head - so I use my iphone to take images when I fel the need to check. Currently I am observing 5 youngsters which are about 4-5 days old.

Now, I only check when I sense something is not right or both parents are out...thismorning I noted both parents out of the nest. It was 6.30 and a strong SSW wind meant that the apparent temp was below 10 degrees....not a time that I would expect both parents out. Concerned, I took a photo of inside the nest and of course, the youngsters were there but one photo was not really going to tell me anything. I set my phone to video but the nest was too dark.....I then thought, why not take several images to see if there was any movement over the series of shots. After flicking through about 15 images, I saw no movement and all were facing towards the back of the nest. I assumed that they were all dead and that maybe the parents had come off the nest on a night where it was too cold. I then reached in to grab them out but before I actually touched them, I felt warmth. My gut said leave it as the warmth suggested that either they were still alive but in a 'shutdown' state and/or the parents had only recently left the nest.

I next checked about an hour ago and guess what, all had their beaks up and were very much alive.....so, in summary, even though they looked dead, they were in fact very much alive and by not touching them I may have improved their chances of survival....my Gouldians are fairly forgiving but had I touched them and they had abandoned, I would have been very disappointed....furthermore, I may have even felt inclined to hand-rear given the fact that both parents were off the nest. Maybe the moral of the story is to limit your observations to never...hahaha!

Anyway, the shutdown state appears to make sense......any thoughts?

[vettepilot_6]

I agree I very very rarely check any nest...even if they are forgiving it is a bad habit to get into...after a bit of experience you can tell all is well by one or more parent missing or how often you see them at the feed station or if they are protective how much they chase others away, also some you will even hear young being fed every hour or so...so no don't check at all IMO

[james_birdbreeder]

cool beans that i great but how do u get them to go into the box