Posts Tagged ‘baby birds’

Sep
09

More Chicks at the Houston Zoo: Red Crowned Cranes

Posted by Rochelle Joseph in Birds

On the 23rd and 24th of April, 2010, the Houston Zoo was proud to greet two new Red Crowned Cranes that hatched to our pair in the Houston Bird Department-Birds of the World!

Red Crowned Cranes (Grus japonensis) is found in Eastern Asia in the countries of Russia, Mongolia, Japan, China as well as North and South Korea.  There are only about 1500 left in the wild making it the second rarest crane species.  These low numbers are due to the destruction of their marsh lands for rice paddies and the expansion of cities.

The cranes use these wetlands and swamps for finding food for their young.  Red Crowned Cranes will eat mostly small amphibians, mammals, invertebrates and insects as well as plants that grow in these marshes.  Red Crowned Cranes typically lay two eggs per clutch.  The incubation period is between 29-34 days and is done by both sexes.  The chicks will fledge after ninety-five days.

Our adult red crowned crane and it's chick

With Red Crowned Cranes it is very common to have early sibling rivalry where the siblings will try to exert their dominance over each other.  In captivity we try to make sure this does not escalate into injury by feeding the chick in two separate sides of their exhibit.  Red Crowned Crane parents are very good at separating their chicks during feedings where one chick will follow each parent.

Our chicks received soaked and chopped Mazuri Crane Diet (which consists of various grains and fish meal) as well as greens, pinkie mice and insects.  We fed them in a shallow pan while tossing crickets and meal worms to opposite sides of their exhibit. 

Lunch!

The parents will catch the insect and hold them out to their chicks, showing them what food to eat.  As they got older we fed them dry Mazuri Crane Diet just like their parents eat.

When the chicks hatched they were a light cinnamon color and very fluffy.  At about four months old they are almost as large as their parents. 

Fuzzy little Red Crownded Crane chick

The have lost most of the fluffiness to their new feather coat and are starting to turn lighter in color.   During the chicks second year they will get their adult plumage turning snow white with a jet-black tail.  At three to four years old they will be sexually mature to start the process over again.

Written by Josh Vandenberg

Tags: , , , ,
Aug
27

Blue-throated Conure chicks hatch at the Houston Zoo!

Posted by Rochelle Joseph in Birds

In Brazil, the Blue- throated Conures are found in lowland forest and at the Houston Zoo, in the Birds of the World exhibits.

Adult Blue-throated conures

 This year, our pair hatched a chick on July 24th after about 25 days of incubation. Even though the parents are raising the chick, we still do our part as keepers to help them.

Welcome to the world!

We give them a special diet three times a day, made up of chopped apple, bananas, sweet potato, carrot, corn, and grapes. Also, parakeet seed mix, sunflower seeds, and a crunchy pellet.  Yum!

Fresh and nutritious!

We occasionally get the chick out of the nest  box to see to it’s well being. When we do this we get a weight and check overall health. We will also put a band around the chick’s leg so that we will be able to identify it when it is older.

Attaching a leg band

When the chicks fledge (leaves the nest box), you will be able to see them on exhibit, right across from the flamingo exhibit, around September  10th.

He’ll look a LOT different by then!  Come check the little guys out.

Written by Jessica Clark

Tags: , , , , , , , , , ,
Aug
19

Flamingo Chicks: Sometimes Baby Gets Sick!

Posted by Rochelle Joseph in Birds

Not everything about hand raising birds is fun and games.  Sometimes the chicks can get sick – but thankfully we have 4 vets on staff that we can count on to help us out when it happens.

Chick 6 (or “Green Head” as we marked him) is a little bit of a bully.  It was one that had to be kept in a brooder alone (but still next to all the other chicks) because every time we would put them all together, 6 would chase around and bite the other ones.  Until one day about 2 weeks ago….

We weigh the chicks every morning and every evening to make sure they are growing well.  Also, we carefully monitor their hydration and food intake.  About 2 weeks ago, Chick 6 was not gaining as much weight as everyone else and the chick’s appetite seemed to decrease.  About a day after we started really watching 6, we noticed that he (or she) sneezed a lot — but was otherwise active and lively.

The next morning was a completely different story!  When the keepers came in, Chick 6 was coughing and sneezing constantly, and having a really, really hard time breathing.  We called the vets immediately.

Without delay,  Chick 6 was moved to our vet clinic.  It seemed it was pneumonia.  The vet staff placed  it in a special holding area where it could receive oxygen constantly and be nebulized 4 times a day.

The little guy in a nebulizing chamber

The chick was still having trouble breathing, so the vets put in a “air sac canula.” This is basically a tube that is put into the air sac (on the side of the body) that allows the chick to breathe easier — a little like a person getting a tracheotomy.  This helped Chick 6 a lot! He was able to breathe a lot more and not be so stressed.

After a week of treatment (both oral antibiotics, anti-fungal medication and aerosolized medication for the chick’s lung), Chick 6 was able to be move to a holding area with out the oxygen.

The chick in it's holding cage

Just like the other chicks, Chick 6 got it’s exercise by running around to keep it’s strength up.

As it got better, Chick 6 got more strength and was able to play for longer periods at a time.

On Friday, August 13, Chick 6 was returned to the department to live with the 7 other flamingo chicks.  Yay!  He still has to be kept separated from the other chicks – but now it’s just because he’s still a little bit of a bully!!

The now-healthy chick, with Dr. Lauren Howard and Dr. Maryanne Tocidlowski

Tags: , , , , , ,
Aug
10

The Flamingo Gym

Posted by Rochelle Joseph in Birds

Exercise for 30 minutes a day makes you grow big and strong.

Currently, it’s recommended that for a healthy lifestyle everyone should get at least 30 minutes of exercise a day.  This is not only true for people, but it is also true for our growing flamingos. 

Since flamingos have such long legs and grow so very quickly, it is easy for them to outgrow the strength of their legs. They have to be monitored each day to make sure they’re gaining enough weight, but not so much that it could possibly cause too much strain on those spindly gams. 

2-day-old chick

34-day-old chick

Above you can see just how dramatic their growth is. As they do, we provide them with that much more space to move around. Though the chicks may start in small plastic brooders, they soon take up residence in outside pens where there’s plenty of  space to flourish.  But even though they are in a larger area, we still have them get additional exercise in 2 main ways:  swimming and walking. 

The spacious pens mean room to grow

To help keep up their strength,  they are set out to play several times a day in a small swimming pool.  This allows them to bathe, eat, and socialize together. 

We also have them walk around the off-exhibit area to develop their coordination and make their legs strong.  They have learned to follow us and we use this to get them to run and play!

The next step to making sure they get enough exercise is taking them for longer walks – like out to the Flamingo Exhibit to swim in the large pool, and also to be introduced to the adult flamingos.

We can’t wait to have you see it, so stay tuned for the next post!

Tags: , , , , , ,
Jul
20

Is That Flamingo Egg Talking?

Posted by Rochelle Joseph in Birds

As we hope you read in our first post  just a few days ago, we here at the Houston Zoo welcomed 10 Chilean Flamingo eggs not long ago. 

Once they arrived, we had to make sure they were kept in the right environment.  To do this, we put the eggs in an artificial incubator.  This machine keeps the eggs at around 99 º and rocks the eggs gently side to side once every hour.  

The incubator with flamingo eggs inside

When our eggs arrived at the zoo, we carefully candled them (we held the egg up to a bright light to see what the developing embryo was doing) and then placed them in the incubators. While the egg shown in the picture is not a flamingo egg, it still shows the embryo and the development of a chick in the eggs (the dark circular spot near the center is the chick’s eye).  

"Candling" the Flamingo egg to see the baby bird developing inside

Since the chicks’ hatching was looming, we also had to set up the room where they would spend the first several weeks of their life: the brooder room.  This is much like setting up the nursery when a new baby is coming home! Laundry has to be done, dishes have to be washed and beds have to be made.  We wanted to make sure everything was perfect for the new kids.   

New chicks are generally brooded (or kept warm) by their parents.  To simulate this we use “brooder boxes,” small plastic boxes that have a heater source to keep the chicks warm and comfortable.  For the flamingo chicks, we have been using brooders from www.petiatric.com; the owner was very kind and managed to get 3 new brooders shipped to Houston in just 2 days, so that the little flamingos’ homes would be ready.   

One of three new brooder boxes to help the babies grow

 One of the eggs had externally pipped on the way to Houston.  During the drive, Cory could hear the chick vocalizing in the egg.  This egg was placed into a hatcher – a machine that keeps the humidity high and the temperature at a constant 99 º, the optimal temperature for a hatching chick.   

As we placed the egg in the hatcher we could hear the chick vocalizing and see the egg rocking back-and-forth from the movement of the chick.  We had the good fortune to get a little snippet of it to show you! 
  

Make sure to come back for the next post to follow the chick’s progress. What do you think happens next? 

Tags: , , , , , , , ,