Little Bird House 4 My Soul: Unwanted wildlife and more Chick Pics

After thinking we had managed to thin the rodent population but wondering why the floor of the bird house was always in such a mess we found their back door...!!! they had chewed right through the wall behind a table.... and were coming and going day and night just as they pleased....!!! full scale manoeuvres ensued. I moved the table and cleaned up the mess inside while Dan and Rich went round the entire outside and put concrete blocks up against the walls... we found an underground Rat base camp behind the bird house.... I hate using poison....... But..... I'm sorry Rats you are dirty vermin and you have pushed me too far...!!! Dan put out some poison in bate boxes to stop the wild birds, cats, dogs etc getting at it... old drain pipe works well too.... and the next day it was almost all gone... we are replenishing it but it keeps going...... so they must be still about!!! We have tried Rat and Mouse traps...which have been set off but caught nothing and all we caught in the humane Rat traps was blackbirds..... which we let out and were fine. So I'm afraid poison it has to be.

Other activity in the Bird House... Petal and Bruce are much the same as .... for ever..... Petal is sitting on 10 eggs all of which to me look clear..... feeling quite sad for Petal as this will be over 30 eggs she has brooded with just 1 resulting chick.... Oscar..(who is in fact a girl) with her previous mate she had hatched 10 chicks from 15 eggs so..... I'm thinking that it is probably down to Bruce.

Big is still sitting on 4 eggs 1 of which is cracked and none of them look fertile..... I dont want to just take the eggs away so I am waiting for her to get fed up and bury them in the shavings before I give the whole cage a massive spring clean and remove the nest box.... She is still missing Gilbert so I dont want to stress her any more than needed.

Dave is calling a lot..... he is really missing Little... the obvious thing would be to try Dave and Big together but....... she was very annoyed when I let them out together and he popped into her cage.... he chased her about far to much which she took immediate offence too scolding him and chasing him out.

Oscar, who lives in the house with Spud is getting very hormonal and is doing the mating thing and wondering why nothing happens..... Spud and Oscar are not a bonded pair.... they are both young and get on ok but don't do the feeding thing or perch next to each other. Spud may actually also be a girl....although the under wing markings look like male markings..... I took Oscar out to the bird house on the harness and introduced her to Dave.... he talked to her quietly and gently and she sat there and ignored him..... I'm going to do this a few more times and see how they get on.

Pedro and Eva have produced 4 more eggs but Eva hasn't started to brood them....they should start brooding from the second egg..... but they are still young and don't really know what they are doing... last time she had 6 eggs which is normal so I decided to take these first 4 and try incubating them in my newly arrived incubator and leave her to lay a couple more and see how she gets on. She doesn't actually seem interested in the eggs at all after she has laid them..but she has to learn somehow!


Phoenix in his fleece

And now to the Babies..... Phoenix...... has been sat on my shoulder burrowed under my hoody while I have been typing all this and is loving the snuggles.....he now weighs 66grams.... his weight gain has slowed a bit and he is going off the formula a bit.... but still calling for food. This usually means they are ready to start pecking at some real food so small seed like millet and finely chopped fruit n veg in small quantities are a good thing to offer.

Snuggly at 31grams...!!!

Snuggly is doing fab..... he is now up to an amazing 31 grams....!!!! He still needs the warmth of the brooder although Phoenix doesn't.... and could do with a whole lot more room to bumble about in... so i have put the brooder in the small cage (well cleaned and disinfected) and removed the door so Phoenix can come out to play while Snuggly.... Snuggles!


The Brooder set up in the weaning cage

Snuggly now has his leg ring on too and its stayed on fine..... and I'm thinking i really need to do DNA blood samples for sexing..... I keep calling them both HE..... but either could be either I don't want to cause any more gender crisis like with Oscar and Spud and do really need to know the sex of the chicks.

I was hoping one of the chicks would be a 'Blue' one either pineapple or yellowsided.... well its not going to be Phoenix..... he/she is showing some really green feathers beginning to come through on the wings and some bluish ones on the wing tips.... the tail feather colour is showing and looks more pineapple colour than yellowsided and there is the beginnings of some yellow and red feathers on the breast....and on the cheeks. To start with i thought the head feathers looked dark but now they are growing through a bit they are looking lighter..... take a look at the pics and see what you think....