Weaning Question

[FirstTimeBirdie]

Okay. So the baby is going on a month and a half old and I'm doing great with the hand feeding, just not quite sure how to move on from here. Any tips? He seems to not want to take as much from me. He's sqwauk because he's hungry but then lose interest a lot sooner than he used to. I think he's ready to try some stuff on his own.

I put a small piece of millet in his cage, but he barely touches it. I also put some small Kaytee pellets in a dish, but he doesn't know how to eat out of the bowl really. He'll take one from my hand and mouth it for a while and then drop it, but that's about it.

Suggestions?

[Carbon]

Ummm no, he's too young for weaning or any kind of eating on his own. Have you done any reading/research on this like I suggested to you a while ago? I think you should. At 1.5 months, he isn't ready to eat on his own.

[Carbon]

Also, you should look up a hand feeding chart. It's actually normal they they feed less as they grows up, until eventually you start weaning at about 2.5-3 months.

Some would recommend abundance weaning, that is, you start putting food in their cage but keep giving them formula until they start to prefer eating on their own. But that's not at 45 days of age.

[FirstTimeBirdie]

Awesome, thanks for the info. Yeah, I thought so as well, but I went to the local pet store, and they have a lot of birds and whatnot and they do a lot of handfeeding so I asked the girl, I'm not quite sure she knew what she was talking about, so I came right to you guys. He's a hearty little bird, can't believe how much he's grown in such a short time and he's fiesty too. LOL I open the cage and he immediately jumps out onto my hand and is ready to go. He perches really well now. He likes to bask in the sun after he eats and then he cuddles up in his little tunnel and sleeps. He surely bobs his head a whole lot though.

[xafsmom]

Sorry, Carbon... but I have to correct you here.


At 1.5 months old (6 weeks), your baby is quite old enough to -begin- weaning. This doesn't mean stopping the feedings. This means you should be putting weaning foods in his cage so he can begin to mouth it and taste it. Fresh foods like finely diced apples and beans, dry millet, cantalope and cheerios, even pellets!

At 6 weeks old, he should be on no more than 2 feeds a day, and in another week to 10 days, dropped to just a night feed.

[FirstTimeBirdie]

Thanks for the info. Can he eat bananas and stuff if it's chopped enough?

[Carbon]

Originally Posted by xafsmom

Sorry, Carbon... but I have to correct you here.

By all means, correct away. I was going by some of the charts I've read, but there's always variation and different breeders recommend different approaches, not to mention variation between individual birds (and of course I might just be remembering incorrectly). What I do remember though is that Nara started tasting foods at 2 months, but she didn't actually chew something off and swallow it until ~ 3 months, and that's for soft foods. Dry pellets were a different story. These she didn't figure out how to eat until a while later. Maybe she's just a spoiled only child.

[xafsmom]

Originally Posted by FirstTimeBirdie

Thanks for the info. Can he eat bananas and stuff if it's chopped enough?

Absolutely! Banana is a tropical fruit and very good for them. In fact, I usually chuck a hunk of corn on the cob in about that time, teach them that biting into something can be rewarding food-wise.

[xafsmom]

Originally Posted by Carbon

By all means, correct away. I was going by some of the charts I've read, but there's always variation and different breeders recommend different approaches, not to mention variation between individual birds (and of course I might just be remembering incorrectly). What I do remember though is that Nara started tasting foods at 2 months, but she didn't actually chew something off and swallow it until ~ 3 months, and that's for soft foods. Dry pellets were a different story. These she didn't figure out how to eat until a while later. Maybe she's just a spoiled only child.

Sounds like she wasn't started on foods properly. At 8 weeks, my Suns have been fully weaned for a week or two (yes, I have several Suns - who outright wean at 6 weeks). She should have been introduced to weaning foods the moment she started picking at the substrate in her brooder.

[Carbon]

Yes and no. There was always food in her cage, she just never ate on her own and I never force weaned her (although eventually she was anyway). I suppose if I did, she could've been eating by herself earlier than that, but I figured she's my only FID, so why not abundance wean her (since several sources said there's no harm in it and that it might in fact be beneficial). I kept giving her formula through her third month, and that's when she started picking at food and eating on her own.