RIO Hand Feeding Food For Baby Birds - 400 g

RIO Hand Feeding Food For Baby Birds - 400 g is a 400 g hand-rearing formula from Rio, mixed with water and fed by syringe or spoon to chicks from hatching to weaning.

Key Features

• A formula for hand-rearing: Mixed with warm water to a consistency that changes as the chick grows.
• What Rio puts in it: The brand names vitamin D with digestible calcium for beak and bone, vitamin A and amino acids for skin and feather, and prebiotics with beta-glucans for the gut.
• From hatching to weaning: Rio's stated range, which is the whole of the hand-rearing period.
• Four hundred grams: A single pack size on this listing.

Hand-Rearing Is A Skill, And This Is The Honest Warning

• We would rather sell you this with the warning than without it. Hand-rearing chicks goes wrong more often than people expect, and when it goes wrong the chick usually dies.
• The commonest way it goes wrong is aspiration: formula going into the airway instead of the crop. A chick that gets formula into its lungs develops pneumonia, and that is frequently fatal. Signs are formula bubbling at the nostrils, gasping, or a wet sound when it breathes - if you see any of those, stop and get a vet the same hour.
• The second is temperature. Formula fed too cool sits in the crop and ferments; formula fed too hot burns a hole through the crop wall, and a crop burn is a surgical injury. Measure it with a thermometer, aim for the range on the pack, and never use a microwave - microwaves make hot spots you cannot feel by stirring.
• The third is hygiene. Make up each feed fresh, throw away what is left, and wash everything between feeds. Warm formula is an ideal place to grow bacteria and yeast.
• And the first question: does the chick actually need hand-rearing? Parent birds do this better than any of us. Pulling healthy chicks for hand-rearing is a choice, not a necessity, and it is one to make with your eyes open.

If You Are Going Ahead

• Get shown by someone who has done it, in person, before you start - not from a page like this one.
• Feed to the crop filling comfortably, not tightly, and let it empty between feeds. A crop that never empties is a problem needing a vet rather than a longer gap.
• Keep the chick warm. A brooder temperature that is wrong will stop the crop moving whatever you feed.
• Weigh the chick daily at the same time. Steady weight gain is the only reliable sign that any of this is working.
• Have an avian vet's number before you need it, not after.

Good To Know

• Let the chick wean on its own schedule. Hurrying weaning is a recognised way to end up with a poor eater, so it is not something to aim for.
• Keep the pack sealed, dry and out of the sun, and look at it before you use it. Anything musty, caked or webbed goes in the bin.
• Tell us the species and the chick's age and we will tell you honestly whether we think you should be doing this, and what else you need.