Found Spew’s story, and it has some crazy details!

From Illinois Raptor Center

"Spew " the second Turkey Vulture chick to hatch from the pair of eggs we admitted at the Illinois Raptor Center. We’ve had some problems with this little guy. First of all it hatched almost 28 hours after the first one ("Hurl "). The chick at two weeks old is literally half the size of the first one. It’s not dimorphism (size difference between sexes ). This little bird is a runt. " Hurl " isn’t exactly the nicest sibling. To be honest Hurl is a massive jerk. I’ve had to remove Spews head out of his mouth many times! Vultures bite and violently twist when they scavenge dead creatures in the wild. They can do this from day one! Spew got injured eventually. Good thing they’re being raised at a rehab center! We’ve separated spew for now and tended to a couple of cuts. So far things are looking better for him!

In this picture you can see a massive bulge under the beak. That is the chicks crop. The crop is completely full of food (which is smeared on the beak too). The chick can rest and slowly push food into the gizzard from crop.

Crazy stuff!

  • JohnnyEnzyme@piefed.socialEnglish
    2·
    14 hours ago

    Far as I understand, it’s common for raptorial chicks to fight to some degree, or push each other out of the nest as part of the ‘strongest one gets the healthiest feed’ idea. Or sometimes the mother herself will cruelly expel the smallest / weakest, especially in times of food scarcity.

    Well, “cruelly” as we humans might judge such things.

    • anon6789@lemmy.worldOP
      3·
      13 hours ago

      Abundant food will generally help most animals conduct themselves a little more kindly to each other. It’s how we can keep unrelated owls and hawk and such together in the aviaries when they normally would be in competition.

      We humans aren’t all so different. Give us a sense of limited resources, and it quickly becomes every man for himself. But if we’re all in a comfy and secure state, we get much more tolerant.