Things have been hectic lately. The birdies are all doing great! The 5 chicks that I posted about below have fledged, been weaned, and 4 of them have a new home as of this past weekend. I kept the crested one. It's a male, and he's learning to sing. :-)
The chocolate trio in the bottom of the stack of cages have 3 hatchlings at last count. There were 4, possibly 5, viable eggs, so hopefully the others will hatch soon (they may have already). Their previous pair of chicks turned out to be both male, and both are very vocal singers. One is rather tame-ish. He won't let me touch him, but he will sit on one of the food cups without flying away while I change the one beside it. He's curious when I talk to him, and sits near me, tilting his head back and forth, listening. :-) Both are big, healthy teenagers. I've got two ladies set aside to be their mates later on when the two boys are old enough. :-)
And the birds in my community cage are on eggs again ... 8 at last count. They're taking turns incubating them. It's too soon to tell if they're viable. Looks like I'll have to separate my community cage occupants by gender after this clutch, to keep them from producing another huge clutch of youngsters back-to-back.
The eggs in the top cage fizzled. :-( There was one chick that hatched, then it passed away within a day or so. After inspecting the nest, I think I found the problem. There was a big moth in the nest box, wedged between the nesting materials and the box itself. I believe the moth flew in, fluttered around and got stuck, and the fluttering upset the birds to the point where they left the nest long enough for the chick and the eggs to get too cold. Once the moth died, the birds re-entered the nest and began incubating again, but by that time, it was too late. It had to have happened while we were asleep; otherwise I would've noticed the freaked-out birds. I removed the DIS eggs and will let them try again if they want. Just a lousy twist of fate on that clutch.
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