Help with weaning a baby & getting them to enjoy pellets

[robot]

I've posted here before and yall are so helpful but here's a bit of a back story: We got our budgie (Chichi) when he was about four weeks old. He was tiny and still had pinfeathers (I live in Japan and this is supposed to be normal practice here for selling birds ). He got tame really fast and when the baby food was finished he switched to eating the adult food... or so we thought. A little over a month ago he started vomiting up seeds. We rushed him to the vet who said he hadn't been eating enough and was underweight, put him on meds and gave us special food to feed him (a powder you add hot water to). We were giving it to him every three hours for a few weeks and when he was better slowly changed to three times a day. We were monitoring his weight and as of a few days ago he was 27 grams before eating.

Fast forward to yesterday morning, I got up early for work and saw that the poop on the bottom of his cage was greenish, liquidy, and had a kind of sour smell. Chichi ate when I offered him the baby food, and then acted kind of lethargic, just sitting on my finger and closing his eyes when normally in the morning he's running all over the place.

We took him back to the vet who told us to put him back on the same medication as before, keep feeding him three times a day, and gave us some roundybush pellets to crush up and offer him. We crushed them up and put them in the same little bowl we usually put the baby food in. Chichi rushed over thinking it was the liquid food, saw the crushed up brown stuff, puffed up his head and started squawking up at me like "What the ---- are you trying to feed me?!"

Last night we took the seed cup out of his cage and replaced it with the pellets but this morning his crop was empty and it looked like he'd hardly touched them. I tried to give him 1/2 crushed pellets and 1/2 baby food mixed together and got the exact same "What the?!" reaction as before. Smart little bird.

So how can I outsmart him? I left a dish with the pellets in his cage and did see him pecking at them but don't know how much he really ate. He will eat seeds and spray millet but definitely prefers the liquid baby food over everything else. When he's hungry - instead of just eating what's in his cage - he'll start whistling loudly and jumping around to get our attention until we give him the baby food.

While he's on the meds feeding him three times a day is okay because we just mix the meds in with the food. But when the meds are done I think it's high time he started eating by himself. Any advice would be much appreciated.

[Krazy Karen]

Mate, 4 weeks is horrific! Budgies are usually under their parents care for at least 6 weeks! Could well be he is scared and doesn't recognise real food (although pellets is not real food). I would feed him baby food and offer him seed in his cage until 1 day he decides he is a big bird and wants to eat by himself. It will happen - my mothers peachface ate baby food until the day I returned to work - then he wanted big birds food and hasn't looked back since.

[Monica]

How are you giving him the handfeeding formula??? (the powder mixed with hot water?) What temperature is the food at when it is fed?

It's possible the budgie has a yeast infection or otherwise. What are the meds for?

[robot]

Karen, I agree. He's a bit older than 4 weeks now. We got him in June, so now he's about 3 months old.

Monica, we're giving him the formula in small portions at a time in a little bowl meant for soy sauce. It's very warm when we give it to him, but not burning hot. I boil the water first then mix it up, so it cools down a bit by the time I give it to him. The meds are for digestion I think, it's a sweet-smelling white formula we mix in with the formula.

I got a new food dish especially for the pellets and put it up kind of high in the cage and he HAS been going up there and it looks like he's eating them! Or... at least he's going up there and pushing them around in the food dish, but that's progress from a few days ago when he just refused to try them.

[Monica]

You should know what the medication is for.

The formula should be fed via a syringe, and kept at the temperature of 100°-110° F (37°-43° C) while being fed. It's not meant to be left out, wet, to be fed to the bird. If fed at too cold temps (or too hot), it could lead to some crop problems.

Ideally, your budgie should have food available to him throughout the entire day. Seeds and pellets, plus fresh foods.

The meds should be given either straight or mixed in with food, if that's what the vet believes is best.

If things aren't going well, he may need to be on an anti-biotic/anti-fungal (which is best found out with an avian vet). Keep your budgie extra warm.