Friday 27 June 2008

More Newbies

Well the crows arrived from Scotland and one is looking a bit poorly. He is very wheezy. I have treated him and we will have to see. He also has a badly deformed foot which means he has difficulty walking well. I am fairly sure they aren't contagious but they are isolated to be on the safe side.

Also got a young magpie with a broken wing. The wound is too old to be treatable and so she is going in with another disabled maggie to see how she does.

Little greenfinch from yesterday is fine and has been released back where he came from.

Had a call to go get a baby seagull which had fallen onto the floor o a warehouse from the rafters. He died within ten minutes of getting him home so he must have injured himself pretty bad, a real shame as he was adorable.

Everyone else is doing fine, the babies are now in a cage and d'Artangon, Athos and Porthos are all perching. Little Aramis can't quite do it yet bless.

Micro is still being a star, my little fella.

So...busy busy as normal......still have loads of cages yet to clean so best get on.

Thursday 26 June 2008

Four More

Four newbies in Yesterday.

A young Dove, doesn't appear injured in any way, just hungry so maybe got split up from Mum and Dad. Feeding on formula as it doesn't appear ready to peck.

Young greenfinch, sat on a lawn looking stunned. Cage rest for the night, no apparent injuries.

Last two are a bit different. Those of you who have had anything to do with birds of prey will know that their staple diet in captivity is day old chicks. The male chicks are culled on the day of hatch. Although I accept the circle of life, I still have great difficulty with this but since BOP's need whole carcasses and are definitely not vegetarians, I have to put up with it. To very slightly make amends, when we collected the chicks last night, we picked up a pair of babies that we ordered last week. Two very precious, beautiful baby bronze turkeys, Parsley and Thyme. They will be hand reared and live here along with the chickens and ducks.

Two baby crows coming down from Scotland expected today

Everyone else doing well.

Tuesday 24 June 2008

Tuesday Update

All doing really well.

Tinies, I am thinking are d'Artangon a greenfinch and the Muskateers, maybe pied wagtails. Grey feathering with white wing bars. Now out of the incubator into a brooder with a heat pad at night only. All eating and growing well.

Baby pigeon and dove, also doing well. Wounds are healing fine and they are taking food pretty well, pigeon more eager than the dove but that is fairly normal.

Chips the baby blackbird is now managing to bear some weight on his broken leg and is getting around fine, he, Squiff the starling and Sid the Parakeet spend most of the time free in the bird room and get along really well, popping in and out of each other's cages to see who has what to eat.

Baby Ducklings doing well also.

Monday 23 June 2008

Newbies

We had a baby Pigeon brought in last night, a lady saved him from a cat, put him out again and blow me, cat got him again. He is quite a small little todge so I think he had fallen from a nest. Seems to be doing well so far.

Also las night, a baby collared Dove, this time a hawk got him! He has some fairly deep wounds but seems to be doing ok so far.

Phone call this morning, two baby crows coming in from Scotland!! The guy happens to be ravelling down here later this week so is bringing them with him.

Sunday 22 June 2008

d'Artangon

I think he is a green finch

Tinies, Sunday 22nd June 2008

All four fine again this morning, d'Artangon is looking like a little bird now.

Saturday 21 June 2008

Other critters in the "Hospital Wing" (dining room :) )

In addition to the mystery babies, we also have two baby mallards, a baby blackbird with a game leg and a bald head, a juvenile starling with a squiffy beak ( he will have to stay in captivity but doesn't seem to be objecting), a Rook who fell in a water butt but is ok now, a pigeon who was shot in the wing but is getting better and Clarissa, one of our wood pigeons. Clarrie only has one eye as she lost one as a baby. I hand reared her about 4 years ago, obviously she has to stay in captivity but she is very precious to us. She seems under the weather at the moment so is in intensive care.

Just moved outside but coming back and forth are Micro and Velcro, young crows. Micro is fab, he has been here for about a month now and bonded to me straight away which may make release difficult but we will see how we go. About 2 weeks ago, Velcro came in, much younger than Micro and Micro has taken him under his wing which has helped enormously. Even though just a baby himself really, he is taking care of Velcro and feeding him. A real star that one :)

We also still have Dumpling, the baby Tawny Owl. He is now outside in an aviary, ready for hacking out and release. he is so daft that it is going to be difficult to make him wild but I am sure we can do it.

The Tinies

We are hand rearing some tinies at the moment. Embarassingly, we thought they were baby blue tits but we are not so sure now their feathers are starting to come though. They may well be sparrows...whatever, they are very cute.

Their names are d'Artangon, Athos, Porthos and Aramis.

I would guess they are about a week to ten days old now. We are rearing them on Kaytee Exact at the moment, in an incubator kindly donated by Wheatcroft Poultry.

If you would like to view the babies live, follow the link on the right which will take you to the webcams page of our website.

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