Tag Weaning

[plunke]

How long does it take for a TAG to wean? Mine is still not fully weaned & I'm patiently awaiting to bring him home! His DOH was 12/02/07.

[plunke]

Sorry. DOH 12/02/07!!!

[babypiggy]

i'm not sure
but i know TAG wean earlier than CAG

CAG can still be hand fed till they are 2 or something if weaned the right way and not FORCED to wean which in the end will cause problems in the behaviour

[my-africangrey-echo]

We hand fed Echo until he was a little over 5 months old. How long it takes really should be left up to the bird himself. Some wean younger but it is most important to let them decide when they are done being hand fed. The wait may seem so long but remember you are going to get a life long baby..

[Lisa B]

yes, Tags wean earlier then Cags do. They seem to do alot earlier than Cags.
However, like others said, its important to let them wean when they want. Coming home to your house is going to be tramatic and you dont want her/him reverting to being a baby because of force weaning.

[Lucky498]

I really don't mean to hijack this thread, but I have a question. After reading this thread I believe my CAG was probably force weaned as she came home at a young age and I never had to hand feed her. She has always been eating fine, pellets, little bit of seed, fruits, veggies, and some cooked foods - she has also not lost any weight either infact she has gained she she came home.

What type of behavior problems could she have later on due to this force weaning? She came home at 13 weeks old and was already weaned for a week before she came home. Any ideas?

[babypiggy]

lucky maybe u should contact the breeder and asked how she weaned them

jsut ask her to descriibe the technique

abundance feeding is the technique everyone favours
this is done by offering the baby their normal formula until they refuse it but at the same time they are offered their "big bird" foods (pellets,freshed and cooked foods).

force weaning is when u stop handfeeding and hoping that if they bird is hungry enough they will eat their "big bird" food

but many believe (including me) that if a baby is refused their formula that their only focus is "I"M HUNGRY FEED ME" and would not focus on their "big bird" foods....therefore they will tend to dislike their human companions as the humans that brought them into this world starved them. As we all know parrots have VERY good memory especially african greys.


Not sure what the after effects would be but i'm sure lisa could tell u

just check with your breeder

birds wean according to the indivual bird themselves

some may wean very young,just the right time, or takes longer

My Ajax is 11 months old and he's still being hand fed One time a day before bed

[SDavid]

"What type of behavior problems could she have later on due to this force weaning? "

I think it's very difficult to trace a bird's problematic behavior back to it's origin. Especially when some birds such as Congos tend to be so sensitive to their environment. And, birds are individuals which makes it even tougher.

I think that the goal is to follow the best advice and practices that the current state of avian knowledge has to offer. When I weaned my TAG I didn't even know there were different "methods" or schools of thought so to speak. "Abundance" or another term for it "Bountifull" weaning was simply the way I was told to do it. I learned there was a name for it later on.

My TAG was weaned at about 5 1/2 months as well.

[Lucky498]

Originally Posted by babypiggy

lucky maybe u should contact the breeder and asked how she weaned them

Before I got her I asked my breeder all that and went with this breeder because she said all of her birds are abundance weaned. We kept in contact obviously about her weaning and how she was doing and once she got towards the end she would use the words "she refused this meal".

I believed that she was abundance weaned, but after reading this thread it had me second guessing. My baby was only 12 weeks when she weaned, could they really wean that young on there own?

[GreyGoose]

I have a CAG and read this makes me think that he was forced weaned, you say TAGs ween before CAGs Goose came to us at 3 months old. I realize this more now because I was handed a bag of roudybush pellets and told this is what he eats, he might not eat the first couple of days but he will eat. The first couple of days turned into the first couple of weeks and no eating he would eat carrots like there was a shortage, I also thought it was weird he was eating the newspaper at the bottom of the cage so I emailed the breeder and no answer, I called no answer. Weeks turned to months and not realizing that Goose was getting weaker all he wanted to do was cuddle and sleep so we found a vet took him.
It turns out that Goose was not ready to eat roudybush pellets he was dehydrated and had no nutrition with low weight. I had to wean him again feeding him a nutrition supplement so he would gain weight. After all the feeding Goose is doing great from 200g to 400g. To this day Goose hates roudybush pellets and had I known I could hand feed him I would have gotten him sooner and would have saved the extra money the breeder charged for weening.