Houseguests

We have three houseguests for the next couple of nights. They are Gold Breasted Starling chicks. Two hatched yesterday, the third hatched overnight last night. They need to be fed every 2-3 hours between 7am and 10pm, and rather than making several trips back to the zoo during the evening Scott brings them home from work with him and takes them back the next morning.

Please excuse the bag of dog food in the first pic. That's our dog, Piper's, food that just happened to be sitting there. The birds don't eat Pedigree. What you see on the plate are chopped up mouse pinks and parrot pellets soaked in pedialyte, yum-oh huh? In the last pic, Scott is using a q-tip dipped in the pedialyte to give the babies a drink of water.

They weigh each chick before and after the feeding and closely monitor their weight gain, how much food was eaten each feeding, as well as the birds' general feeding response and, yes, even their poop. Eventually, the birds will be big enough to eat on their own and once they reach that point, they will be able to stay at the zoo overnight. Once they are big enough to "fledge", they are released back out into the Jungle building.