WARNING! This page contains pictures of deceased baby parrots
in various post mordum, medical conditions. Some pictures may
be very sensitive to some viewers. However, it is, in my mind
an important lesson for all of us to learn and share and be
able to understand certain problems, their cures and diagnoses
in order to help out beloved pet birds.
The following descriptions are short and have specifically af-
fected me during my years of raising baby parrots.
AGAIN, VIEWER DISCRETION IS ADVISED!
Prolapsed Umbilicus:
Unfortunately this is usually a fatal problem if it is severe
enough. It is usually cause from incubation but can still
occur when eggs are naturally incubated by the parents. If
the problem is small enough to where there just a little bit
of the umbilical cord being out of the body, it will usually
dry up and be fine. However, if it looks like the picture
below, the chick usually does not survive. The chick in the
picture below is an umbrella cockatoo that was over-due for
hatching so I assisted the hatch. No pipping had occured. I
had to begin the hatching. The membrane inside the egg, when
candled had no veins. Upon opening the egg the membrane was
totally dry. The chick has not been kicking or chirping for
the past 3 days. The chick was still barely alive when I got
it out of the shell. Upon completion I noticed the severe
prolapse and the chick had excreted urates inside the shell
and membrane. The chick died about 20 minutes later. This
chick was at 31 days.
Under Developed Embryo
Ironically, this is the "nest mate" for the chick in the pic
above. This was egg number two which was 29 days into devel-
opment. I believe this happened do to the extremely violent
nature of the cock while inside the nest box with the hen. On
several occassions he would throw the eggs around trying to
get out of the nest box fast enough to attack me to defend
his territory. He would also be just as violent when going
back into the nest box. It is my personal belief that he done
massive damage to the developing embryos when the eggs were
rolling around. Prior to me assisting this hatch, this chick
had also been kicking and chirping inside the shell but had
stopped 3 days prior to my assistance. Again the egg was
candled and there were no veins showing inside the shell and
upon opening, the membrane was completely dry and the chick
was barely moving. It died approximately two minutes after
it was out of the shell.
