You definitely do not need to handfeed the baby. The parents should do quite well on their own just make sure to offer them good healthy foods during this time adding in more soft foods than usual, (oatmeal, cooked sweet potato, even scrambled or microwaved eggs) to help with nutrition. I would suggest if you want the baby to be tame, (much easier if parents are tame) to start handling the baby once it gets a bit bigger and a partial feather covering. Budgies are usually easier to handle even when not fully tame but if the parents are wild it may be harder to have access to the babies. At first just handle for very short periods of time gradually extending them. As long as the parents have been caring well for the baby this should not affect them at all.

Many people think handfed babies are tamer than others but well socialized parent fed babies are just as tame sometimes even more so. Completely hand raised babies know no fear or caution of humans and seem more likely to "test" as they get older. Parent raised/socialized babies have their parents caution around humans but are used to the contact and companionship of humans so do not usually go through as much of the testing stage (IMO).

[ Reply To This Message ] [ Subscribe to this Thread ] [ Hide Replies ]