legal to buy parrot hatching eggs?

[PARKBOY]

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Heres a few pics of my baby parrot that I have been hand feeding. This is my very first time doing this and It is not half as hard as people make it out to be. Hes now 4 weeks old and I got lucky and hatched out an albino.

http://i32.photobucket.com/albums/d5/PARKBOY/dcp_2306.jpg
http://i32.photobucket.com/albums/d5/PARKBOY/dcp_2305.jpg
http://i32.photobucket.com/albums/d5/PARKBOY/dcp_2304.jpg
http://i32.photobucket.com/albums/d5/PARKBOY/dcp_2303.jpg

At what age did you start handfeeding?

7 days old.

 

[WalkingWolf]

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At what age did you start handfeeding?

7 days old.

There is a big difference between waiting a week and hatching them without the parents. I used to raise parrots for pet stores in Florida. I usually took them at two weeks, but sometimes it was necessary to take them from hatching if the parents did not care for them. In the case of bonding there was no difference between the ones taken at hatching and those taken at two weeks in temperament. It is extremely time consuming if hand feeding from hatching. They MUST be fed every two hours to be healthy. That means waking up every two hours of a night.

I have raised parrots for many people and found that as long as they bond with the parrots and continue handling they will form just as strong a bond as if they hand feed them self.

The OP is probably going to have a hard time finding any breeder of quality willing to sell the eggs. And unless parakeets or cockatiels the eggs will be very expensive. Hand raised parakeets and cockatiels are readily available at reasonable prices from breeders.

 

[PARKBOY]

Quote:
7 days old.

There is a big difference between waiting a week and hatching them without the parents. I used to raise parrots for pet stores in Florida. I usually took them at two weeks, but sometimes it was necessary to take them from hatching if the parents did not care for them. In the case of bonding there was no difference between the ones taken at hatching and those taken at two weeks in temperament. It is extremely time consuming if hand feeding from hatching. They MUST be fed every two hours to be healthy. That means waking up every two hours of a night.

I have raised parrots for many people and found that as long as they bond with the parrots and continue handling they will form just as strong a bond as if they hand feed them self.

The OP is probably going to have a hard time finding any breeder of quality willing to sell the eggs. And unless parakeets or cockatiels the eggs will be very expensive. Hand raised parakeets and cockatiels are readily available at reasonable prices from breeders.

I never said there wasnt or was a difference between waiting a week and hatching them without the parents. All I said is that I did it after having zero experience and it's not as hard as people make it out to be.

 

[CityChicker]

Okay, my background is as a very large scale parrot breeder. My family raised parrots for thirty years. I have bred and hand fed Macaws, Cockatoos, Amazons, Conures, and many smaller species (literally in the thousands over the years).

If you purchase hatching eggs from any parrot species, you might as well just burn your money. First, I doubt you will be able to find any to begin with. If you can, the person selling them is a scammer, period. I would venture a guess that 99.9999999999% of parrot breeders will tell you what I just did. Hatching parrot eggs is not even in the same planet as hatching poultry eggs.

Handfeeding baby parrots is also not even on the same planet as raising baby poultry. Different species of parrots have *highly* variable levels of difficulty in hand rearing. Comparatively speaking, handfeeding a week old baby cockatiel is much, MUCH easier than say a baby Macaw/Cockatoo/etc.... The age also makes a HUGE difference. A baby that is even two days old is *much* easier to raise then one that is newly hatched. One that is a week old is about a hundred times easier than one that is a day old. When you artificially incubate them, you do not have the benefit of those early days of development being taken care of.

Finally, a parrot of ANY age can bond with you just fine! You do not need to handfeed them for this to happen and that is actually a VERY common misconception of people that have not done their research into parrots as pets. Hand feeding them yourself does not make them ANY more likely to bond with you.

 

[CityChicker]

LOL, also- as an addendum to my post...

The vast majority of reputable parrot breeders will not even sell unweaned babies, regardless of their age. If they won't sell you an unweaned baby that is even 2-3 months old, that should tell you something about how difficult and involved the process is. Weaning in and of itself is another difficult area of parrot breeding to do *properly*.

 

[sparkles2307]

Off the main topic but there was a single guy in our neighborhood when I was a teenager who had a parrot room built into his house (we lived in a new subdivision) and you could see right into it when the front door was opened. We always hit him up for the hockey sales and stuff so we could look in the door and his Blue Maccaw

 

[CityChicker]

How cool! I love Macaws. They were my favorites. I had a pet Blue and Gold Macaw for many years (She just died two years ago). She was an ancient wild caught bird from the days of quarantine. She was actually given to me by an elderly couple that found her in their back yard. She had been attacked by their dogs and was almost completely featherless and with a broken wing.

She bonded to me right away when I got her. We were inseparable. She bonded with me closer than any other bird I have ever had and she was a WILD CAUGHT adult bird!

***All birds that were caught and imported were banded with a split band with three letters denoting the quarantine station followed by three numbers. My family used to breed parrots and trade out the babies with one of the largest importers (Pet Farm) for more adult stock to be used as breeders.

 

[texasgal]

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THAT is the TRUTH!! I found handfeeding to be a joy, and not difficult (yes .. straight from the egg) ... but never imagined how difficult the WEANING process is ... especially with "needy" bird types .. lol

 

[CityChicker]

Yep, if not done properly over several weeks (or months in the case of some of the larger birds), you can end up with a bird that is neurotic and has problems for the rest of its life. This is something best left to the experts.

 

[kdcrws]

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thank u for the info. now how do i find a breeder who is on the up and up?

and what breed would u recommend for a first timer? I have three kids, but the parrot is for me and will be mine. and does the sex of the bird matter?