Personal Projects for 2011

For the last couple of weeks, since December 2010, I have been setting goals for the year 2011. Well, you might say, this is nothing new, everybody does this. My goals, however, keep shifting in timeline.

I made a firm promise to myself that this year I would do the following and it is not negotiable:
1. Publish a novel or at least get one accepted by a publisher,
2. Produce enough vegetables to not only supply our own household – I am already doing that, but to sell and supply to needy families in the local community,
3. Get my African Grey parrots settled on the farm and have them start breeding again. All of this needs to be done while still working a full time job at DKP Investigations and helping on the farm. 

This doesn’t seem like much of a goal, but life has a strange way of getting in the way of realising your goals.

The two novels I have finished, need to be edited. I HATE EDITING and I keep finding more important things to do – like updating the blog! I am itching to start with a new novel, but have to finish editing the others first. Finding the time to read your own writing and being critical about it, is not that easy. One tends to read over the mistakes or start doubting your own abilities.

As for producing the vegetables, I have to wait to get the tunnel installed and at the moment, the men just don’t have the time to prepare the earth for the project. We are located on a hilly slope and the ground has to be levelled first. So now I wait…and wait… and wait. Hopefully this will get done before the end of the month, but at the rate we are progressing now, that timeline might also shift.

The African Grey Parrots were supposed to be relocated by the end of January, but again, construction on their housing haven’t even started yet. I love it when we have African Grey parrot chicks in the house as it means I am forced to work until their 2am feeding time and the house is quiet from 10pm onwards. Many of my novels were written during that time.

Well, I hope to have the novel edited before I go the Kruger National Park in the first week of March so that I can celebrate my anniversary with a clear conscience. I’ll keep you posted on how I get along with realising the goals. 

How Much to Feed African Grey Parrot Babies When Hand Rearing

The amount of formula to feed an African Grey Parrot chick and the times between feedings vary from bird to bird.As stated in a reply to a previous post, African Grey chicks are like children – each has their own needs and personality.

How Often Should you Feed the African Grey Parrot Chick?

 

The general rule of thumb is to feel the chick’s crop. If the crop is nearly empty, it is time to feed the baby.

What we usually do is to start feeding every three hours from the time we take them from the nest – usually at three or four weeks. We monitor the crop clearing carefully during that time to make sure the crop never completely empties. You should also take care not to leave too much food in the crop as this could lead to illnesses in the chick.

When you find that the crop is empty after two hours, you need to decrease the time between feeds and if the crop is still relatively firm after three hours, increase the time between feeds.

Here is an African Grey parrot chick with a nearly empty crop.

And here is the chick with a full crop.

Your bird therefore mostly dictates how often he/she should be fed.

How Much to Feed your African Grey Parrot Chick

When the chick is still very small, you need to feel the crop to make sure you don’t under or over feed the chick. When the crop is feeling stiff, not hard though,  the chick will have enough formula for the time being, Overfeeding can lead to the chick bringing up the excess formula and underfeeding will be detrimental to the bird as it would stem development of the bird. As the parrot babies get older, they will stop feeding when they’ve had enough.

They will also begin to show interest in other foods like shelled sunflower seed, fruit and a boiled mixture of other seeds. From about six to eight weeks we introduced these foods slowly before and after feeding the formula to get the birds accustomed to a variety of other food except formula and sunflower seeds.

African Grey Baby/Chick - 10 Days Old

This African Grey Chick is 10 days old and a complete sweetie. We removed him from the nest a little too early ( I think) but he is feeding well and gaining weight. Two days ago the African Grey Chick weighed 130 grams and today a whopping 160 grams. That is a 23% weight gain.

Being alone seems to be the only problem this little one has, but the soft toy we put in with him appears to help ease the loneliness a little. He is much quieter than the other two, but makes soft noises when he notices you or you stroke him.

He is still a bit "naked" and looking at the tiny shafts of feathers appearing, it seems like he will still be that way for a while. At he moment the down on his head gives him the appearance of a semi-punk (which to me adds to the cute level substantially.)

He likes to eat and because the crop didn't clear enough in two and a half hours, we moved the feeding times to every three hours. (After the short break with the other two, this again takes a little getting used to.)

The other two chicks have settled in well with their owners and the reports I get are that they are absolutely the most clever and most cute parrots ever hatched. Hmm, I thought so from the start, but it's great to get positive feedback from their owners. Needless to say, both are being spoiled rotten and are treated like children in the home.

I hope you will enjoy this journey with the growing African Grey chick as much as we do.

African Grey Parrot Babies Develop Feathers

Our African Grey parrot chicks are nearly 5 weeks old now. They have grown by the hour and I think doubled in size during the last week. They are eating well and this week started to develop feathers.

Even the red tail feathers, unique to the Congo African Grey start to show.

The parrot chicks enjoy stretching their legs and simulating flight by flapping their wings - causing mayhem in the brooded as wood shavings fly all over the place. As mentioned in the previous post, they discovered their voices and now they tend to "talk" to the person feeding them (Especially if the porridge is not provided quickly enough.)

You will notice the eyes are fully open and trust me, they see quite well. The eyes will turn more yellow as the African Grey parrot matures and the black eyes are a dead giveaway for a young parrot.

Baby African Grey Parrots

At last we were able to get a short segment of video of the African Grey Parrot chicks that hatched last week. The 2 babies are now 7 days old and it was quite a mission getting the footage. One person had to wait inside the bird cages, concealed by a piece of plastic sheeting from the rest of the cages while the other sat outside to watch the birds. Because we do not want to disturb the parents, we had to wait until both parents left the breeding boxes and went to the front of the cage.

And the wait had been long. We tried the whole week long with "locked up" times varying from 1-4 hours. Today it paid off and the attached video is the result. With no light inside the breeding boxes we had to use night vision to limit the disturbance to the chicks to the minimum so the picture is sort of black and white.

Hope you have a few "ah shame" moments like I did.