Kakariki Feeding Chart
1-5 days
6-9 days
10-14 days
15-21 days
22-28 days
29-35 days
36 days to weaning
34.4-35.8
33.9-35
32.7-33.8
30-32.2
27.2-29.4
24.4-26.6
Degrees In Centigrade
21-23.8
Age Of Chick
45 days to Weaning
8am,12pm,4pm,8pm,12am
Feeding
Amounts
Feeding Times
1-4 days
5-7 days
8-14 days
15-24 days
25-34 days
35-44 days (Fledging)
Every 3 Hours
Every 2 Hours
8am, 1.30pm, 6.30pm, 12am
8am, 4pm, 12am
8am, 8pm
8pm
1-3 ml
3-5 ml
6-9 ml
6-9 ml
10-15 ml
0-15 ml
0-15 ml
Age Of Chick
Please Note:
This chart and infomation is intended to be a guide only for temperatures, times, and amounts as each bird you will find is individual and you may adjust the times to suit yourself but follow the same space of time between feeds.
When removing baby birds from the nest for hand raising, the safety of the young must be the primary consideration. If there is any danger of parental neglect or if aggression exists, the young should be removed.
Most birds can be tamed if removed around the time of natural weaning age 8-12 weeks but obviously taming/bonding may take a little longer, with alot of work involved compared to a hand reared.
We take Chicks for hand rearing from just over 3 weeks old for 2 reasons, first baby birds should be left with the parent birds for as long as possible, if one wishes to maximise immunity from the parents. Also, intestinal flora is passed from parent to young along with regurgitated, somewhat pre‐digested food, assisting the young birds with digestion. secondly because from this age they do very well in, in a normal brooder/cage without the need for extra heat as long as the room temprature is kept pretty constant.
The feeds at 3 weeks old are every 5 to 5 and a half hours.
The chicks usually take between 7–10ml of food 4 times a day.
At 4 weeks old the chicks will be down to 3 feeds per day every 8 hours
By now the chicks can be taking anything up to 15ml of food per feed. At this age we start to introduce more solid foods for them:
E.M.P Egg Food
Millet
Fruit and Veg
Parakeet Seed
Clean Fresh Water
By 5 weeks the chicks are down to 2 feeds a day 8am and 8pm and are starting to mess about on their morning feed, the signs of this we see are they will have maybe 1 or 2ml of formula from us then just fly off, any amount of encouragement to take the formula is a no, no, they know best, yes you start to panic about whether they are having enough food, as long as they have foods in the cage they will be fine, it is all part of the weaning process.
By the time the chicks are 5 and a half weeks to 6 weeks old they drop down to 1 feed a day 8pm, by now they will be eating a lot more independently of you and may even start to refuse this 8pm feed.
By the time they are 7 weeks they are totally refusing food from us, so from now until they are 8 weeks old we monitor very closely what they are eating and whether they are starting to break open sunflower seeds, as this is a sure sign that they are weaned.
We never let a chick leave us before 8 weeks as you need to be sure that they are fully eating by themselves, we always advise that it could on the day that they turn 8 weeks or we may hold on to the chick for longer if we are not happy it is feeding properly 8 weeks is the miniumum age that these birds should leave you some like to keep them longer. I like to let them go then so they bond to their new owners easier and quicker.