Great baby / Awful breeder / how to tame now.

[CheriZ]

Last week I went to pick up my new baby, (6 wks old at the time), blue Quaker parrot. I purchased him from a local breeder I found online. Her website was lovely. She was quick to reply to my every email and I assumed she was an experienced Quaker breeder.
Although I've owned 2 adult rescue parrots, I wanted to have the experience of raising and training a young bird to fit into our home and lifestyle.
The breeder informed me that the baby would be weaned and ready to go by May 3rd, so could I come then, as the next day she would be packing for a move to Florida. So of course I went.
Well, I followed her directions and arrived at the most disgusting, flea ridden hovel that reeked of cigarette smoke and wet dog!
The place was filthy dirty and she had the bird alone in an empty cage on a filthy table. She reached in and grabbed the obviously terrified bird and put him in my carrier and I bolted out of there before I puked!
I had his cage all set up before I left, so when we returned home, I gently lifted the baby out of the carrier to more closely examine him. His feathers were all in and looked good, but he smelled of smoke. (Imagine his poor little lungs living in that smokey environment!)
He was clearly terrified and immediately flew off my hand and went SPLAT against my sliding door. I felt like a terrible Mom, but I really wasn't expecting such a young bird to fly off like that! I scooped him up and named him Squeegee, since I had to peel him off the window.
I immediately put him in the cage, but it was instantly apparent he had no idea what a perch was or how to use it so I set him on the floor of the cage. (Covered in newspaper so the bars won't hurt his feet.)
He ignored the fresh, finely chopped fruits and veggies, as well as the pellets and millet, and instead cowered in the far corner. I sat on the sofa near the cage and talked softly and basically let him sit and chill. By evening he still had not eaten, so I gently moved him closer to see his food, but he just went back to the corner. The next morning he was still in the corner - food untouched, so I decided it was time to intervene. I made up a pudding consistency mash of baby food, banana, cormeal and peanut butter and used a syringe to feed him. At first he was scared, but I held him on my chest gently stroking him with my left hand, while I offered the food to his beak with my right. He started to relax and took about 8cc's of food. I put him back in his cage and repeated the process for lunch and dinner. Clearly this bird was not weaned. The next morning when I uncovered his cage, he came right over to the door and peeped at me wanting breakfast! So the hand feeding went on for the next few days, while also offering food in the cage which he is now picking at, though he prefers the soft hand fed food. I have just eliminated the noon feeding, and though he still peeps to be fed at noon, I instead add food to his cage and direct him to it. He picks at it more and more. (HATES his pellets - nibbles fruits and veggies but prefers millet). He is now 7 weeks old, and though we both enjoy the bonding time during feedings, I will continue to cut back til he eats enough on his own.
He still won't use perches, but will climb the cage bars to get into his cozy hut where he spends 80% of his day.
Any time I get him to sit on my finger, he immediately takes off to fly around the house.
How do I teach him to sit still on my hand for even a few seconds? Training will be impossible if I can't get him to sit still on a hand or perch. Any advise???

[Pajarita]

Yes, breeders are usually terrible people and nothing will ever dissuade me of that notion because nobody who loves birds would breed them to sell them to whoever has the money (as if the baby was a chair!). That's not love, it's exploitation plain and simple.

He needs soft food served fresh twice daily: gloop, couscous, polenta, cooked pastina, etc. all of them mixed with either pureed baby veggies and fruits (nothing with meat or cereal) or chopped produce. Birdy bread is another good option if you make it loaded with nutritious stuff (meaning NOT the crap that Harrison's sells as birdy bread).

[CheriZ]

Yeah....giving him lots of good, healthy soft foods. Doing better eating them every day.
My main concern is how to go about getting him to sit still long enough to teach him anything. Since the breeder admitted to me that he was raised by his bird parents for the whole 6 weeks, with no human interaction, it was basically taking a baby bird right out of it's nest and tossing him in to a big cold strange cage! I'm FURIOUS!

[Wolf]

You are basically going to have to be very patient with him while spending a lot of helicopter time with him. That is to say just hanging out with him, talking and even singing to him and offering an occasional bite of millet or other healthier treat through the cage bars until such time as he will come over to see you and remain relaxed. The talking and singing will help him to get used to your voice as well as help to reassure him. I would not concern myself with training him for at least a month, he has not been properly weaned nor socialized and so it will probably take him some extra time before he is ready to trust you to any degree after the treatment that he has received.
Probably one of the most difficult thing to accomplish at this time is out of cage time. I think that it is going to hinge mostly on keeping his evening meals on a fairly strict schedule so that he knows when it is time to eat and is looking forward to getting his dinner on time. If you time his dinner to be right about the beginning of dusk, then when he is used to this and looks for it to happen at this time you should be able to start giving him some out of cage time. Probably about an hour right at first and then make sure that he sees his dinner being put in his cage and he will probably go right in for it. If not he may step up just for the help of getting to his dinner. But this may be a week or so away before you can do this. In any case he would be easy to catch when it gets dark if need be.

[CheriZ]

Thanks very much for the tips. I just feel so bad for the little fella, getting ripped away from mom & dad like that. Grrrrr.

[Pajarita]

Yes, you need to have a cold heart to be a bird breeder because even when you treat them right (good housing, good light schedule and quality, good food, not overbreeding, etc) you still have to steal the babies from the parents which makes them suffer something terrible!