CAGs regressing/stagnating with basic training-HELP!!

[Wolf]

Most definitely!! Your parrots don't need the sugar other than a little in the form of fruit and they need to be kept on a low protein diet. Just as the length of the days signal breeding season, protein is a trigger for breeding and helps with the production of the very hormones that we need to get out of their system.

[Pajarita]

Actually, any bird fed high protein and carbs would go into breeding condition at 13 hours of light... even canaries and they are from a temperate zone and their point of light refractoriness (best breeding) is 14 hours of light. So, for a gray, 13 hours of light for more than a month would mean chicks in the nest and getting ready for a second clutch.

Yes, decrease protein. As to sugar, I go give mine some honey or maple syrup in their gloop -just a little drizzle on a big bowl of gloop (8.5 heaping ladlefuls) every other day or so all year round to flavor it (along with other stuff, of course) but not sugar.

[sgtpepper]

i did not mean sugar sugar, i meant sugars, organic chemistry sugars. fructose is a sugar.
and by that i meant: should we stop giving them fruit and honey?
and by decreasing the protein intake i meant: should we stop feeding them pellets, boiled beans etc.?

[liz]

In this order, I feed vegetables leaning on the green and orange, fresh fruit not dry. Carbs such as whole grain, unsweetened cereal, cooked oatmeal, rice, grits and polenta and dragging behind is seed and peanuts. Really good Amazons get an almond now and then. I was feeding scramble eggs but stopped that.

I would let them loose so they would get so much exercise that they will ask for help to get back to their cage. If all they do is sit on top of cage - push them off and keep them moving.

This probably disagrees with everyone else.

[Wolf]

Pushing them is not a good idea Liz, they already have trust issues to contend with.

[Pajarita]

Fruits are fine. I try not to feed too many 'summer' fruits during the winter but they still get fruit every day.

Just reduce the protein intake by switching from higher protein grains or beans to lower protein ones (like rices, for example, and soft white spring wheat instead of hard red winter) I also switch the seed mix from 50% cockatiel mix with sunflowers and 50% small psittacine safflower-based mix to 1/4 tiel w/sunflowers, 1/2 safflower-based and 1/4 budgie mix. The change doesn't have to be super drastic but a lower protein added to the short days and long nights and a lower temperature in the birdroom keeps mine perfectly tuned to the seasons.

[liz]

Pushing them is not a good idea Liz, they already have trust issues to contend with.

Okay, I chose the wrong word. Encourage them to keep moving.

[Wolf]

Pushing them is not a good idea Liz, they already have trust issues to contend with.

Okay, I chose the wrong word. Encourage them to keep moving.

The biggest issue here with these two Greys is to bring their raging hormones down to where they belong and also to build trust with them. The male is so out of sync with his hormones that he is very aggressive and I am certain that he is in so much pain from swollen gonads that he can't stand to be touched at the moment. I think that respecting him in this matter and helping him to get his hormones down and just talking to them will do more good than anything else that can be done for now. He will mellow as the hormones drop and the pain decreases and he is intelligent enough to know that his new family is listening to him and trying to help. It takes a lot of patience to accomplish this especially with his aggression and his screaming.
Patience and doing the right things to help him to heal and providing him with the opportunity to exercise and just allowing him the time to heal are the things that he needs more than anything else right now. There will be ample time for petting and training after he heals.

[Pajarita]

Yes, I agree with Wolf 100%. You suggestion, Liz, is not a bad one, it's only that it needs to be done later when the bird is more comfortable both physically and with his new humans.