Page 335 - Hand rearing birds second

324 Hand-Rearing Birds

Figure 19.3 California Condor chick at 46 days interacting with a condor puppet. Source: photo by Mike
Wallace, courtesy of the Los Angeles Zoo.

cleaning or for medical procedures, a dark drape is first loosely placed over the chick by the puppet
and sleeve. The caregiver can then move the curtain aside and place the covered chick in a deep
container for weighing. It is very important to ensure adequate ventilation for these young chicks
that have a naturally low carrying capacity for oxygen in the blood. Isolation can be maintained if
the weighing container has numerous ventilation holes on one side that is always kept facing away
from the caregiver and the drape is placed loosely over the top of the container.
A newer method of maintaining visual isolation during routine procedures is to use the loose
sleeve as a hood. Chicks will naturally probe and push, so the caregiver uses the sleeved hand to
gently cover the chick’s head and then inverts the entire sleeve over the chick’s neck. The open end
is gathered with a soft elastic insert which helps secure it. As with a drape, the time a chick is
hooded should be kept brief and adequate ventilation must be ensured. As long as the fabric is
lightweight and the elastic end is slightly loose, and the chick is not agitated, ventilation should be
adequate. Chicks that are draped or hooded behave much as they do when brooded or when it is
dark, remaining very relaxed. They will, however, continue to probe and poke their heads out from
under a drape or through a curtain if given the opportunity. This might seem like a minor problem,
but chicks very rapidly become habituated with just this limited exposure to humans, so caregivers
must be vigilant to prevent this.
Even with good isolation, chicks can become habituated to change of all sorts if they are handled
too much or desensitized to many new experiences. Because of this, moves and other changes in
the chick’s environment, incidences of physical restraint and exposure to other chicks are kept to
an absolute minimum. For older chicks and juveniles, moves and exams are best done at night
when the birds are less alert and there is no association with routine, daytime activities.
As chicks get older and are moved to outdoor chambers, the puppet becomes less suitable to fill
the role of an adult condor, so its use is decreased over time. Chicks may become overly aggressive
with this surrogate parent, which is not appropriate chick-to-adult behavior. At this stage, visual
and auditory access to one or more adult condors provides more appropriate role modeling for the
chick. For California Condors, a single adult male mentor is housed adjacent to the hand-reared
chicks and they are later fledged, one at a time, into the enclosure with him. Males have proven
more tolerant with chicks than females who are often far too aggressive with them, especially if
there is an adult male nearby. Females have been good mentors for juveniles over 1 year of age.