That baby flood I was talking about has been reduced a bit. The first
egg hatched and thrived. The middle cherry-head egg went all the way to
hatch date and then died in the shell. And the baby that hatched latest
died at 7 days of an apparent beak defect. At first I thought the reason
he wasn't growing fast was due to the older baby getting all the food.
But as it turned out, his tongue seemed to be attached to the upper part
of his beak, preventing food from getting in except through a very small
opening along the side of his tongue. His parents were unable to keep
him well-nourished, and I was unable to feed him for fear of aspirating
him. He was too small to operate on. When I realized he was not going to
make it, I put him back with his parents and he died with his mother
lovingly incubating him.
The parents have not stopped screaming since the baby died. I don't know
what to do about it, either. I'm not taking it so well myself--in 7
years of bird breeding, I've never lost a baby post-hatching. I knew it
was a long run of good luck, but I really didn't expect it to end this
way. 
Anyway,  out of 3 cherry-heads expected, I have one, who is fortunately
doing just fine. I pulled him at 12 days to give the smaller baby a
chance to have his parents to himself before I realized his tongue was
the problem.
Both the jenday babies did hatch, and are (thus far) doing well. They
are only a few days old, and are still with their parents. After they
are pulled, I'm taking down all nestboxes and taking all the parents for
vet checkups. I suspect there is an underlying medical problem with
the cherry-head pair that caused the dead-in-shell and birth defect. I
want to avoid it happening again.
--Kathy
 * SLMR 2.1a * Gone Chopin. Bach in a minuet.
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