Raising young birds with foster parents

When foster parenting can help with successful and natural breeding.

Breeding parakeets and parrots does not always go entirely smoothly. Even if you have managed to set up or acquire a harmonious pair, you still need to get them to the point where they will lay and incubate their eggs. Suppose these first steps have succeeded, then you still have to hope that the eggs are fertilized and that the chicks safely hatch from their eggs. All in all, there are a whole series of factors and risks that could cause a clutch to fail. Even if the chick hatches healthy and well, the young birds are still dependent on the care of their parents for weeks or even months.

It often happens that, unfortunately, things don’t quite work out with the bird’s own parents. As a result, we humans often end up acting as foster parents by hand-feeding and keeping the chicks warm. However, in some cases, this is not necessary at all! I will stay out of the discussion here about whether or not it is good to hand-raise the chicks, but it is legally prohibited to separate young animals from their parents when the parents are perfectly capable of raising them themselves. On the website of the Dutch government, you can find out how many days birds must stay with their parents at a minimum.