Another loss

You will have noticed that the nest box cam has been down for the past few days, that's because Marge's chick has died. I'm partly to blame, as I wrongly assumed Marge was feeding the chick properly, it looked like she was on camera. However, I found the chick in a desperately bad way and in the end it was to weak to be hand fed. The chick died in my hand.
I should have removed this chick as soon as I realised that Barney was not helping with the feeding. It's normally for the male to do the majority of the feeding when the chick is a couple of weeks old. Barney's foot problem is getting worse and has obviously been a big factor in his lack of interest. Up till this year he has always been very diligent parent. It's typical of my luck with splendids, that the year I get him (a split lutino) to breed with a lutino hen, this happens.
This year was going to be decision time for the splendids; as to whether I was going to continue keeping them. The fact is, my breeding success with splendids has varied from average to disastrous, particularly after I got obsessed with trying to breed lutinos. That's why I got the bourkes and turquoisines to see if I would have better luck with them.....
The turqs have two chicks....the other four eggs were all infertile.
Both pairs of bourkes are now on eggs.