Help...baby on the ground!

[Winger]

This is our first year to have birds.

Earlier this morning a baby was on the ground (don't know how long). It made a short flight, then hit the ground. After a few minutes of fluttering, it made a successful flight.

We have a second baby on the ground, and have been watching it for about 45 minutes. I don't think it "fell" out of the nest, too far away from the base of the pole. Did this baby just come out too soon? Should we place it back in the nest?

Note: These babies came out of natural gourds. The afternoons are really hot...mid to high 90's.

Would appreciate any information.

[birdy girl]

Do you have access ports on your gourds? Do you write down each gourd # and how many nestlings are in each gourd? If so, lower the rack and check each gourd. Put the baby back into the gourd it came out of. If you do not keep paper work on your colony, look into each gourd and place the baby back into a gourd with babies the same size as this one. Try to place it into a cavity with the least amount of babies so it won't over work parents to feed them. Also check for mites crawling on the gourds. Babies usually jump from nests due to mites, heat, or lack of food. We place about a tablespoon of sevin under nesting material and also mix liquid sevin with water, put in a spray bottle and spray the outside of the gourds to also kill mites.

Do you have ventilation added to your gourds? We add 2 3/4 inch pvc elbows on each gourd so hot air can escape from gourds. Place them as close to the top or upper area of the gourd. We had 2 babies to die from heat when we first started this hobby due to not have pvc vents on gourds. Ventilation is very important with the hot temps we are having this summer. We found 1 jumper on ground Sat. afternoon. THe gourd had mites crawling on it. Treated all gourds on the rack and the next day the mites were gone. Hope this helps.

[rtolliver]

if you have young that are near fledging be extremely careful about lowering your system, this may cause multiple premature fledges. More than likely if this young one is ready to fledge he or she may have been knocked to the ground by a subbie, i see that often, the young may stay grounded until the harassment stops.