Ask Lafeber

The cockatiel chick not eating anything

I’ve 19 days old chick, the parents were too possessive or aggressive while raising the chick as it is the only surviving chick of their first clutch. They use to nibble it’s skin for its feather with which it was born so much so that it started bleeding. As already discussed with you, they are being attentive and helping the chick with new feather to come. But since the chick is in grave pain I decided to separate it from the parents.
Now when I hand feed it, it never eats. I gve it crush of fruits and veggies and milk as I live where there is no online delivery and due to this epidemic my movement is not possible to go to purchase baby food. The chick is getting thinner and not eating at all. Please help me

Hi Sapna,

Please give the chick to the parents and hopefully they will feed it. You can remove it between feedings. You should NEVER feed milk to a bird – they lack the ability to digest it. It can make a chick gravely ill and it will die if you keep giving this to it. Fruits and veggies are not what it needs right now. If you can’t access a baby bird formula, you will have to let the parents feed it. Hopefully it is not too weak, because they will only feed it if it is alert and begging. It also will not eat if it isn’t warm enough. As I mentioned before, it is not old enough to regulate his body temperature and needs a heat source. It probably needs to be warmed up and then it might become alert enough for the parents to feed it. In spite of their over attention, it is better off with the parents because you do not have the right type of food to feed it. It is common to be worried about chicks and how the parents are caring for it, but sometimes you have to let them be and hope the outcome is good.

Take care,

Brenda