ten little ball and chains

Was awake for early feeds, only to find red-faced mousie and little swallow dead. Guess swallow was partly expected, as he was very flat yesterday.

The rest of the day until about an hour ago was basically feeding, short break, feed again. Good thing about having lots of sparrows on the list was that I don't have to time their feeds - the noise level does that for me. If I can hear them, they're hungry. And while I'm there, the others get fed as well.

It's bad because it shows that they are imprinted (which is why they are home with me, for a longer hacking out period), but the sweetest feeders today were the adult red-faced mousebird and the glossy starling. I have limited space in which to put the cages while still ensuring that they all get the right mixture of heat and light, so I ended up with the starling on the left, sparrows in the middle, and mousebirds on the right. And every time that I fed the babies, there were shrieks from the starling and wide open beak from the red-face, hoping that they'd be offered a syringe full of baby food. The inside mynahs, BTW, are hulking great juveniles, and are fiercely resisting the switch from baby puree to adult food. Not quite passive resistance, more along the lines of a food riot in jail - food everywhere except down their gullets. Mind you, the worst weaner I've known (also a mynah) was still eating baby puree from a spoon every 30 mins when she was more than 6 months old (i.e. very adult, and about 4 months at least after she should have been feeding herself. And 30 minute feeds are what the babies who are so young they don't even have eyeballs yet are given). Shows you what weak-willed mothering can do to a kid..

As FD said yesterday, 'fake it til you make it'. Might not be a relaxing w/end, but I guess it keeps me out of self-endangerment.