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How well a caique socializes with people is determined by how the chick was reared.  This is one aspect in which caiques differ from some other parrot species. With patience, wild caught Amazons and African Grays can become very agreeable pets. This is almost never the case for caiques. My experience with both wild caught caiques, as well as caiques reared solely by their parents, is that they do not make good pets no matter how persistent you are at training them. The best I have achieved is training them to get on a stick on command. In contrast, caiques that interact with people from an early age make the excellent pets. Surprisingly, this does not always require removing the chick from the parents’ nest and artificially feeding it.

There are basically three ways to rear caique chicks in captivity. These are:

·       Let the parents rear it.

·       Remove the chick from the nest and hand rear it. The chick may be removed shortly after hatch or up to three weeks after hatch.

·       A combination of the two methods above called co-parenting. There are several forms of co-parenting.

Each of these rearing methods has a place in caique husbandry and should be applied to achieve specific goals.

Chicks left with the parents until after they fledge are best suited to become future breeders since they are of poor pet quality. Caique parents usually do a good job, but parenting seems to require some practice. Incubating the eggs is not usually a problem, but novice parents sometimes do not make the transition from incubation to chick feeding smoothly. If you are not vigilant, none of the chicks will survive more than the few days it takes for their residual yolk nutrients to be depleted or the chick becomes dehydrated. Even the second clutch may present a challenge to the parents. After three or four clutches, though, they seem to become experts. Yet, even experienced parent birds sometimes do not feed all their chicks. Parrot chicks hatch asynchronously in the order in which they were laid. Thus, the last chicks to hatch have less of a chance for survival. This seems the case for both captive parrot pairs as well as those nesting in the wild (Brightsmith, 2000). These last chicks to hatch are called Benjamins. In some bird species, the older chicks force out the younger ones, but not in the case of caiques. Caique parents show an immediate interest in the first hatchlings and because first to hatch become vocal first they command more attention from the parents. Chicks that hatch later are simply neglected and when they do not receive an adequate amount of food and warmth decline and die. This is the reason the chicks of all breeding pairs, but especially novice pairs, should be carefully monitored.

To monitor the chicks you must have an inspection door in the nest box. The inspection door should be easy to open and close quickly so that inspections do not last more than five minutes or so. If the parents are aggressive toward you, they need to be induced to leave the nest. My aggressive pairs usually leave their nest when I make some kind of commotion near their cage. I can then make a quick inspection before they return. If the pair is tame, they may let you do the inspection while the hen is still in the box, but not all tame pairs are amenable to this. Do not be afraid to handle even the smallest chicks. Contrary to popular myth, the parent will not destroy them afterwards. There are a number of thing to note during the inspection. Here are some of them:

·      Are the chicks and unhatched eggs in a huddle?  Unless it is very warm, when the parents leave the nest the chicks first huddle around the unhatched eggs and then with each other to keep warm. Newly hatched parrot chicks are not able capable of thermoregulation for the first week or so (Pearson, 1998). Usually the hen spends long hours in the box brooding the chicks, but not always. In their native tropics, daytime temperatures are quite warm, continuous brooding is sometimes not needed. So some caique parents are less inclined to brood and supply as much warmth as is needed in our temperate zones. If a chick is not in the huddle this is a sign that it is not getting enough nourishment and warmth.

·      Does the chick have food in its crop? For this, it is best to check the box an hour or two after the birds have left their box in the morning to forage. If you inspect too early in the morning, none of the chicks will have food in their crop since caiques do not feed their chicks during the night. If there is no food in the crop after the parents have been given an opportunity to feed it, the parents are neglecting the chick.

·      Examine the chick’s toes and beak. When the parents do not are seem unable to feed a chick, they sometimes chew on the chick’s toes or beak. If you notice this happening, remove the chick immediately and hand-rear it.

Even for an experienced aviculturist, it is a difficult and troubling decision to remove a chick from its parents’ care. Most often it is the youngest chick that must be removed, and being neglected, patience is needed to get it to feed properly.

Before removing a chick that is less than a week old, I try to provide supplemental feedings and quickly return the chick to the nest. Hand feeding a chick that is less than a week old requires a bit of skill. I give the supplemental feedings in hopes that the parents will resume this role. The goal is to keep the chick hydrated and supplement the nourishment it is receiving form its yolk sac until it has the strength to produce the sounds needed to induce its parents to feed it. Once you hear it making healthy begging sounds, it will usually do well. When you do this, you need the check the chick at least twice a day and feed it when its crop in not full. The best times for this are in the morning after the parents have been given a chance to feed it and in the evening just before the parents settle in for the night. If the parents do not take over the task within two days, you are left with little choice but to pull the chick and hand-rear it.

Feeding chicks less than a week in age requires great care. I use a commercial hand-feeding formula and prepare it according to the manufacturer’s instructions. A dilute formula is always prepared for the very young chicks and the concentration gradually increase for the first five days or so. I always prepare formula fresh and take great care to keep my equipment clean. I find it very convenient to prepare formula in disposable plastic Solo cups that may be thrown away after each use. The temperature of the formula is very critical and must be monitored with a good thermometer. For the very young chicks, the formula must be almost exactly 105°F (39.5°C). Any higher and you risk burning the chick’s tiny crop; any lower and the food will not be accepted. The food may be kept warm in a small bow of warm water during the feeding. The feeding itself must be done with care. I prefer a one-milliliter tuberculin syringe without a needle. It allows me to control delivery better than an eyedropper or a plastic pipette. Feeding of chicks at this age is easiest for right-handed people. I hold the chick in my left hand with it facing away from me, then I coax its beak open by applying the end of the syringe to the right side of the chick’s beak. Once a small amount of the moist formula gets into the beak, the chick usually begins to take it in by itself. You should not have to force the syringe into the beak nor should too much formula be forced on it. Chicks at this age will only take a few milliliters. the best guide is the visual examination of the chick’s crop--it should be full but not overly distended. You may also monitor food intake as well a follow growth by weighing the chick. Chicks that are less than two weeks of age must never be fed from the left side as this may kill them. When fed from the left, the food may be aspirated into the trachea and lungs and the chick will immediately die from suffocation. This is something I learned by heart wrenching experience. Fortunately, this is not as critical for older chicks.

If you remove a chick permanently for hand rearing, you must provide warmth and food at regular intervals. Very young chicks cannot regulate their body temperature very well and will die if not kept warm. They should be placed in a brooder that maintains a temperature between 95 (35°C) and 98°F (37°C). At this early stage, you can keep the chick an incubator intended for hatching eggs if you lack a brooder with good temperature control. Humidity of a brooder is less critical than for incubation, although it should not be too dry. The feedings must be done every few hours. The time of feeding is dictated by when the crop empties. At first this will be about every two to three hours during the day, but you can and should stretch the interval as the chick ages. You do not have to wait until the chick is completely empty to feed it if is inconvenient for your personal schedule. They are somewhat flexible in this regard. Further, it is important that the chick be allowed to empty completely at least once every 24 hours. Competent parent birds do not feed their chicks during the night, so you need not either. I usually feed then just before I go to bed and make sure I get a good night’s rest myself. In the morning, the first thing you should do is weighing the chick to monitor its growth. After weighing, give the chick its first feeding of the day and return it to the brooder. Its weight should increase steadily, although a gain may not be noted some days and you may even see a drop of a gram or so. Do not be too alarmed unless a loss is seen for three or more consecutive days. A slight dip in growth rate is typically seen when the feathers are breaking through the skin.

Because feeding and handling new hatchlings is a challenge, I try to avoid hand-rearing these young chicks. It is much more convenient to leave the chicks with the parents until about the time their eyes open. This typically occurs at about the end of the third week after hatching. The reason for pulling the chick at this age is to ensure they imprint on humans after they open their eyes for the first time--at least this is the dogma. Interacting with people is important if the chick is to become a good pet. At this age, the chicks are much easier to feed and care for. At this age, the chicks are able to regulate their body temperature better, and do not need to be kept quite as warm as new hatchlings. However, they still need to be kept in a brooder because they lose heat rapidly due to their small size and lack of heavy down. I keep chicks of this age in a brooder at about 90°F (32°C) until the chick has most of its feathers. It is very important not to let the brooder get too warm. One breeder, Tom Ireland (1989), did not recommend providing any heat at all, instead he kept chicks three weeks and older at room temperature.

Brooders can range from an empty aquarium set on a hot pad to very large expensive commercial brooders. There is no doubt that the commercial brooders are the better. They offer better temperature and humidity control than the lower cost or jerry-rigged ones. I highly recommend them if you are planning a large bird breeding operation. For hobby breeders such as myself, it is possible to make do with less expensive alternatives. For my day-old chicks I use a small egg incubator such as the small model made by Lyon, Inc. When the chick becomes too large for the incubator, it can be  moved into a roomier brooder where the temperature may be allowed to range from about 87° to 93°F. Small chicks need to be kept warmer than older ones because for the first few days of life they pliothermic, i.e., they do not produce enough body heat themselves. As they grow, they are able to regulate their temperature better and need less additional warmth. Once it has completely feathered out, I does not need additional warmth at all. As the chick grows you should feel and watch it. If the chick appears to be too red, it may be too warm. The redness is from the blood vessels close to the skin dilating to increase the rate of heat exchange.  You should also note how warm the chick is when you feed it. If it does not squirm and feel warm to the touch, you may need to increase the temperature of its brooder.

It is not difficult to feed a healthy chick at three weeks of age. They naturally pump in the food when you touch the soft pads on each side of the beak. It is only a matter of somehow delivering the food in a convenient manner. Most large breeding operations feed their chicks with syringes. Some use gavage needles or tubes to deliver the food directly into the crop. These methods are rapid and much less wasteful than the other methods I describe here. You can also monitor their intake better, but you will need progressively larger syringes as the bird grows. Another method is “spoon-feeding” as advocated by Rosemary Low (1987). For this the bird is fed with a spoon that has had its sides folded up to form a sort of shuttle. A stainless steel baby spoon works best for caiques. This is a very effective but slow feeding method. Being slower has an advantage. It allows more time for you to socialize with the chick and this is thought to result in a better pet. The last way to feed the chick, and the one I use for chicks greater than two weeks of age, is the plastic cup method. When you use this method, you prepare the food in the plastic cup then you compress the sides of the cup to form a ‘V’ down which the food can flow into the chick’s beak. This method allows the container to make good contact with the soft pads at the corners of the beak than any of the other methods. This contact causes the chick to pump vigorously and it will often consume a full portion in a single continuous feeding. I prefer the Solo 5 oz. non-colored plastic cups because they are less brittle and do not crack when you pinch them. When you use this method, the same container used to prepare the formula is used for the feeding. Further, these cups are inexpensive enough that you may discard them along with unconsumed formula when you are done. Of course, after feeding you will have to clean up the spilt food with a warm wet paper towel. Having three different feeding methods often proves useful when a chick is recalcitrant about eating.

You will find that the appetite of a growing chick can be prodigious, beginning between three and four weeks of age a chick will consume much more than an adult bird. They can take between 1 and 2 tablespoons into their crop at each feeding and they can consume it as quickly as you can shovel it in. At about six weeks there is a transition. The chick starts to be fussier about consuming formula and its intake starts to decline as its weight approaches that of an adult. At this point it is good to be skilled in feeding the chick by several different methods.

Now is the time for start the chick’s socialization if you want it to be a good pet. You will notice the chick staring at you. Let it look at you by bringing it up to your face. You should hold and talk to it. At this six week transition point, pin feathers are pushing through the skin. The feathering process seems to irritate the chick. Helping it break its feather casings offers you another chance to interact with the chick, but you must not to break any of its blood-filled feathers. If you can, try to handle and talk to each bird individually for ten to fifteen minutes every day or even more often.

Also at about six weeks, it is time to start the weaning process. When you notice the chick is picking at things in the brooder, provide it with a few solid foods. I start placing a few Cheerios or other cold breakfast food, a sliced grape and a small piece of spray millet in the incubator. Once you see that the chick is eating these, start adding more adult foods. At this age, the chick will not be able to hold these in its foot, but will chew them and begin to hold them it its beak. As they grow older, it is amusing to see their frustration when learning to hold food in their prehensile feet. They especially like grapes and the softer fruit such as kiwi and orange from which they can extract the juices. They will prefer seeds, but if you are persistent, you can wean them onto pellets. Unlike other parrots, most caique chicks wean rather easily. I have had chicks suddenly refuse to accept formula anymore. Most, though, simply take smaller and smaller amounts of the formula and finally just accept a swallow or two and refuse the rest. By this time this happens, they are eating an adult diet and can do without. Surprisingly, young birds that are a year or so old often remember their days as a chick and beg for a taste of hand-feeding formula when they see you feeding a young chick.

Chicks that are being hand-reared need to be kept clean. Even caique parents clean up after their chicks. When you check a nest with chicks in it, you almost never see evidence of droppings. The only explanation is that the parent birds not only feed them but also dispose of the chick’s droppings. I have no idea how the parents do this. The youngest chicks are best put into small disposable plastic bowls such as those in which soft margarine come. These should be lined with soft white tissue not paper towels. I use soft toilet paper and the chick is usually a bit more comfortable if you drape a bit of the paper over it. The reason for using white tissue is to watch the appearance of the chick’s droppings. It is always a great comfort to see that the chick’s digestive system is functioning, especially when they are very young. Their dropping will be tiny, but should have the appearance of those of an adult bird. Using a soft tissue paper is important at this age because the chick’s skin is very thin and even a paper towel may be rough enough to abrade a squirming chick’s skin. Abraded skin is evident from when you see blood on the paper and scrapes on the bird’s feet. If you see evidence of this on tissue, apply an antibiotic ointment to the abraded skin, switch to lining the dish with wax paper, and keep a close watch. As the chick grows, you can move it into progressively larger bowls and at about two and a half weeks begin to use a paper towel as a liner instead of soft tissue.

Once the chick reaches a certain size a simple lined bowl will no longer suffice. It will roam the whole area available within the brooder.  This requires a new approach to keeping the chick clean and there are a number of them. Perhaps the most common is to place a layer of absorbent material in the brooder. Most use wood chips; others use non-medicated horse pellets because they fear the chick may ingest the wood chips. My practice, however, is to line the brooder first with an cloth baby diaper, then a paper towel, on top of which I place a piece of the rubberized mesh intended to prevent rugs from skidding. The diaper serves to absorb the moisture from the droppings, the paper towel catches the dropping solids, and the rubberized mesh serves to help prevent the chick from developing spraddled legs. The diaper is washed and reused, the paper towel tossed and the rubberized meshed rinsed in hot water, dried, and reused with the same set of chicks. I also place a soft toy such a small teddy bear or a clean stocking stuffed with cloth in with the chick, this seems to be especially soothing for single chicks. The arrangements for keeping the chick clean; however, is really a matter of personal preference.

As fledging time approaches, chick should become familiar with a cage. A standard commercial cockatiel cage with a roost box attached that is lined with newspaper on the floor is fine since it is not so large that a startled chick will hurt itself, but still provides enough room for the chick to explore. The acclimatization should not begin until the chick is proficient at perching steadily on your finger, i.e., capable of standing fully upright without its rear-end dangling below the perch. At first, at least one of the perches in the cage should be set low and within reach of the chick from the cage floor. The chick, however, will soon learn how to climb and will use higher perches. The chick usually appreciates a small card board box, such a half of a cold cereal box, laid sidewise on the floor of the cage that it can scurry into and hide. For the first day or two, remove the chick back to the familiar confines of its brooder for the night. Once it seems comfortable with the cage, allow it to remain in the cage over night. Most chicks will have explored the roost box by then and will take to sleeping in it, but others may need to be confined to it just for the first night or two by blocking the entrance hole. Once it gets used to the roost box, the chick will prefer sleeping in one the rest of its life. The roost box should be lined with a paper towel. Young birds do not seem to know they are not supposed to defecate in them. So you will need to change this paper towel every few days until it learn it is not supposed to do this. After it has learned this, you may switch to using wood chips in the box. It usually takes only a few days for the young bird to acclimatize to a cage.

Earlier, I indicated that there is way to produce hand-tame chicks that does not require their permanent removal for hand rearing. This may seem contrary to the dogma that birds imprint on the first living thing is sees when it opens its eyes, but like all dogmas, a kernel of truth has been oversimplified by the workings of the human mind. In reality, things are more complex. Birds have the capacity to imprint on more than one kind of living being and that living being need not be present at the precise moment the chick opens its eyes. Since 1994 I have been producing hand-tame caiques using an approach I call “co-parenting.” Co-parenting is in its infancy as an avicultural practice, and the key parameters of its practice are still being worked out. Further, the practice of co-parenting seems to be one of degree.  For example, Casky (2000) adopted the practice of assisting his macaw pairs in the feeding of their chicks in order to assure they are receiving a more nutritious diet. As a by-product, he discovered that the chicks were more people friendly. A scientific investigation of co-parenting of orange-winged Amazons has been done at the University of California at Davis (Millam, 1999; Collette, 2000). It was found that when the parrots were handled for 20 minutes or so a day suffered far less stress and, indeed, became quite tame toward their human handlers.

 Except, for assisting with the feeding of very young chicks, i.e., less than 3 days old, I do not hand feed the chick during co-parenting. One of my finding is that co-parenting only produces chicks of good pet quality when only one chick is left with the parents. All the other chicks in the box should be removed for hand rearing. I usually leave the oldest chick in the nest and pull the younger ones as their eyes open, although this may be reversed. I begin handling the chick for 4 or 5 minutes a day or two before its eyes open. It seems to be important that the chick get used to this early handling so that once its eyes open it is not as stressed. Once the chick’s eyes have opened, I begin to handle it twice a day. In the morning I only handle it for a minute or two; in the late afternoon I handle it for at least 10 to 15 minutes. By handling, I mean nuzzling with it, making little clicking sounds into its emerging ear opening, and keeping it warm in my cupped hands. As it gets older, I offer it a half of a sliced grape or other soft fruit that has been warmed in hot water. A real favorite are fresh sweet cherries, but these are not always available. I am very careful to keep it positioned to look into my face. Indeed, this may be of critical importance. You want the chick to focus its attention on you and you can tell if you are succeeding if it seems to stare back at you. To achieve this, you may have to leave the area where the parents are housed so that it cannot see them. As part of the handling, you may help it learn how to perch. At first the chick’s feet do lack the natural tendency to clamp onto your finger, but a week or so after it has nearly feathered out, it will develop the skill of perching. At first, its tail end will hang low and you will have to balance it carefully, but in a week or so it will be able to perch comfortably on your finger. Once it has mastered perching, you can move on to teaching it the “up” command. To do this, you start with the chick perching on one hand and then offer it the chance to climb onto your other hand. For this you should offer it your thumb as a point onto which it can hitch its beak and then gently encourage it to move its feet onto the first finger of the same hand. These lessons should be repeated  as a way of bonding with the chick. If all goes well, the chick will become very tame. You should also spend time gently scratching it particularly about its head. During the feathering process, the chick welcomes this as a way to help remove the feather casings and this later leads to it accepting your preening efforts.

Properly co-parented chicks make excellent pets. At first I sold these birds at a discount, but no longer. The people who bought them have discovered that in some ways they are even better than completely hand-reared chicks. They have a natural desire to be near their owner, perhaps even more that hand-reared chicks. One of my buyers chose not to clip its wings, and the bird will fly to him wherever he happens to be the house. 

The final step in chick development is fledging. Fledging is when the chick learns to fly. One day you walk into the aviary and you find the chick sitting on a perch outside the nest box. Or in the case of a hand-reared chick , it takes flight. The chick has fledged. It flying capacity is quite limited at first and its landing are not very graceful, but within a week it is fairly adept. If is it is one of the chicks I co-parented, I leave it with its parents during this learning process. One problem, however, is that it sometimes becomes less willing to leave the cage to be with you. So between one and two weeks after fledging, I remove the chick to a cage of its own or one containing other young chicks of about the same age. I once left a female chick with its parents for over a year. The parents went to nest and reared their next clutch  with no problem. When the parents laid the next clutch, however, this young female started destroying the eggs and had to be removed. This chick seems to have reverted to a behavior similar to that of a parent reared bird only less fearful of people. After the co-parented chick is separated, it takes a day or so for it to adjust, but it usually adapts quickly and develops a strong attachment to people.

A website with photos showing the growth of a yellow-thighed caique from hatch to just after weaning may be found at the Running Bird Ranch Site. For more information on rearing parrot chicks visit the Hagen Avicultural Research Institute website.