Dear Parrots magazine,
Never give up
My pair of Moustached parakeets laid three eggs in May and in June one chick hatched. But then we went through the recent drop in temperature, the hen left the nest and we thought the chick was dead. We could see on the nest-box camera monitor that the chick was no longer moving. We left it a while to see if the hen would try to feed the chick, which it did, but there was still no movement, so I went to retrieve it from the nest-box.
As I walked away I just wondered if there was a chance of reviving this motionless, freezing cold chick. I cupped it in my hands and blew warm air on it, and after about five minutes it twitched. My wife took over as I got the incubator ready and after a few more minutes it started to move and then to tweet! We are so glad we tried to save it, and it is currently growing stronger every day.
At the same time as we rescued the chick, we also put the remaining eggs in our homemade incubator, and they all hatched! We actually caught one chick in the process of hatching and recorded the sequence on the camcorder - it was marvellous to watch. So if you ever find yourself in a similar situation, do not hesitate to go for it, and you might end up with a very happy ending like we did.
Dave and Jane Marson, Stoke-on-Trent