108



STEVENS - PINK-BACKED PELICAN



Table 1 details the different diets used at Longleat over the years, including

the current diet. Also included in Table 1 is the diet used at Tierpark Berlin

and the diet of what is thought to have been the first chick hand-reared in

the UK. The egg was laid at Longleat, but the chick was hand-reared for the

first 27 days by Paul Wexler at Birdworld, Surrey. It was then transferred

back to Longleat.


The diets have been tried and tested over the years and have proved

relatively successful. However, it should be remembered that individual

pelican chicks vary and what works for one may not work for others, and

some chicks progress faster than others. The chicks are not fed for the first

12-24 hours. This is to maximise the chance of the yolk being absorbed.

If for any reason the yolk is retained, this can lead to infection (see later).

This is something which has been a problem throughout the hand-rearing

of Pink-backed Pelican chicks at Longleat.


At Birdworld the chick’s food was liquidised and spoon-fed to it, a method

that initially was not successful, as much of the food was voided and left the

chick in danger of suffocation (Wexler, 1997). Therefore, it was decided

to use small, boned, carp, which had been scalded and then scraped with a

knife to remove the flesh. At Longleat we scald sprats by placing them in

very hot water to soften them. As sprats can be quite rigid and difficult to

digest, this helps the chicks swallow the fish. We choose not to liquidise

the food as the chicks take well to whole trout (lg-5g in weight) during the

first week, and these are digested easily. They then easily progress onto

whole sprats. After observing Sacred Ibis Theskiornis aethiopicus raising

their chicks successfully, it was suggested that we should make a change

to the way in which the pelican chicks are fed. As a result, they are now

encouraged to pick up the food for themselves from a tray or their bedding,

as opposed to being fed by hand.


Until recently the chicks were fed every two hours from 8.00am-8.00pm

and did not always seem keen to feed. Now they are fed on demand, with

the interval between feeds often varying between one to three hours, between

8.00am-8.00pm. The 8.00pm feed is cut out at days 17-20 and by days 36-40

the feeds are reduced to just two a day. The chicks are not mollycoddled, if

they do not take the fish within a short period of time, they are left on their

own for a while with the fish beside them; if they continue to refuse to eat

it, then that feed is withheld. It can be frustrating if a chick does not eat the

food, however it is vital that the chicks learn to help themselves. Force-

feeding is not an option, as it is stressful for all concerned and the chick is

likely to bring the food up (Mike Tye pers. comm.). Chicks can become

lazy when it comes to taking more than one small fish, which is not enough

to attain a healthy weight gain if this is repeated at every feed. One method

of reducing this is to give such chicks a very small piece of fish to start with.



