A wall

Been taking care of I-babies everyday now, because the mom keeps throwing all the bedding out and the papabird helps too occationally if he can fit in. Problem here is that the babies are still packed with food - all the time - and the amount of poop, now that they are older has also grown. Without bedding it sticks to their feet and even feathers, especially tail feathers, so I have been picking off the poop even twice a day. They are also messy eaters or she's a messy feeder, and the food gets stuck onto their beaks and feathers.

Why this too, is a problem, is that if unnoticed the chick can get malformations on the beak, not be able to use their feet properly, again resulting in splayed legs or malformations or worse.

I took the legwraps away yesterday, those also being dirty and the eldest seems to be standing pretty well, but I think some of the younger ones  might need a new one for a couple of days.

But I also came up with a solution to slow down the frantic nest emptying, which might work long enough, and maybe the parents will stop doing it when it becomes too difficult. I built a wall, well, I just pushed one in, resulting in a babybox and "a hallway". So they can empty the hallway easy enough but the box will get trickier to empty. One evening and a night is behind us and this morning checking up on the chicks they were pretty much poop free and sitting happily on a bed of shavings!

A wall

I-clutch, here is the violet which of course doensn't show on the image...