How to Feed Parakeet Chicks

Newborn animals are extremely dependent and vulnerable at the beginning, which puts the skills of their keepers to the test. To correctly feed parakeet chicks, you have to pay attention to a few aspects.

The mortality rate of parakeet chicks is very high. For this reason, you must take extreme precautions regarding their feeding.

Basic facts about the breeding process

The first step in being able to properly care for the needs of parakeet chicks is understanding the breeding habits of the parents.

You must bear in mind that parakeets can mate at any time of the year, and that the mating process lasts between 3 and 4 days. At the end of the process, the female will begin to make her nest and spend some time in it.

Once you see that the female doesn’t leave the nest, you’ll know that she already laid her eggs and that the incubation period has begun. The pre-incubation process usually takes about 10 days.

The average number of eggs parakeets lay ranges from 4 to 9. Since the female won’t move until the eggs hatch, the male will feed and groom his mate. At 16-29 days, the parakeet chicks will hatch.

The birth and feeding of parakeet chicks

The female parakeet doesn’t lay eggs simultaneously. She’ll lay and incubate them one by one. Thus, the first eggs she lays will hatch before, maybe one or two days apart.

During the first days of life, parakeet chicks emit a kind of high-pitched chirping to tell their mother that they’re hungry. She’ll feed them with a kind of mash, which is nothing but food that the mother herself processed and regurgitated.

For this reason, it’s very important to feed the parents correctly. The most nutrient-rich foods are:

• Birdseed
• Oats
• Millet
• Water
• Cuttlebone (cuttlefish bone)

Putting a calcium stone in the water can also work as a supplement to avoid possible diseases. Seeds are an indispensable item in their diet. The male also takes care of the chicks, and you must bear in mind that he’ll constantly enter and leave the nest to feed both the mother and the chicks.

Parents need as many or more nutrients as chicks do, as they have to feed themselves and keep their chicks alive at the same time. In these stressful circumstances, some violent behavior can also occur.

• In fact, many cases in which the female has become aggressive and attacked her own chicks have been documented. If you need to, experts recommend separating the chick from their parents and feeding them mash with a syringe.
• Sometimes, the father mates with the female again while she’s in the nest. In fact, she may become impregnated again, which leads her to neglect her current offspring to focus on the new pregnancy. Again, the solution is to separate the chicks and care for them in another cage.