New baby lovebird, fearful of humans - how to proceed?

[thesilversakura]

The necropsy showed a part of Houdini's intestine was black, most likely from a bacterial infection, clostridium or the like. Apparently it would've been caused by a compromised immune system secondary to a possible viral infection or problem from birth, malnutrition etc. I would've done blood work on Peach but the vet said with such a tiny bird being put under anaesthetic for quite a while, the stress of doing so, then taking feather and blood and fecal samples would allow any virus she might have picked up to take hold. (We're going to talk to the management of the garden centre in a few days. Complete with vet invoices and a write up of the necropsy and a darn good letter.)

In other words, the viruses it potentially could have been are incurable, and if she is to have a fighting chance if she does have one, god forbid, it would be better to watch her like a hawk and disinfect like mad than induce stress now. She's currently playing with her new cat balls on my lap and throwing them everwhere, so I'm feeling positive!

I was also given some trial samples of Harrison's High Potency Ultra Fine, ironic that we have a big bag and she won't touch it haha. The vet was advised by a nurse who works with the local zoo's exotic birds, and also has birds of her own, that converting her to the pellets instead of her parakeet and lovebird seed would be the best thing to do. God knows how I'm gonna do it with such a picky bird, but apparently it is the best for her. At one year old she'll go on the adult lifetime pellets, and the nurse has said we can call her for any husbandry advice we need, which is good. No extra vitamins, just the pellets and her wholegrain, fruit and veg and cuttlefish of course.

Shall I make a post in the diet section so I don't clog up this topic? It's gonna be a ride with this little one, she's so fussy! Thank you all so much for your help and support so far, it really is never ending with birds!

[liz]

I am so sorry that you lost your Houdini. You can"t loose Peach so keep her close with interaction so she won't hide her pain if she has caught it. I have my fingers crossed for Peach.

I can see how the vet feels about pellets this time. The pellet would digest better than seeds with hulls. Increase her wet foods and you won't need many pellets. Gimpy came on a pellet diet. He now gets only 4 pellets with his supper along with about a 4th of a teaspoon of budgie seed. I also give him an unsalted little pretzel or a bagel chip. I have read of the ingredience and they have nothing harmful and do give the birds something to wrestle with while the try to eat it.

[thesilversakura]

Thank you so much Liz, she needs all the finger crossing she can get. She's got a huge personality, but every now and then you realise how tiny and fragile she is. I'll be watching her for a long while now. She came out with me to the vet and was eating millet in her cage the entire time, she looked surprisingly content. We even took her into the local pet supply store and bought her some new toys, not an inch of fear and even got excited when I showed her her new cat balls we were buying. I kept her at eye height the entire time and I think because I was with her, she was happy. She doesn't touch her millet if she's not content, I feel like taking her on adventures more often! Definitely going to harness train her too. I think this whole experience has brought us closer together, to not take her companionship for granted. I do treat her like my baby, haha.

I'm thinking of putting the pellets on top of her seed and seeing how she goes, knowing her she'll dig her way though. Mixing it in with a bit of seed, or making a mash perhaps? The problem is if she doesn't have seed she refuses to eat, and begs me for food constantly like a chick. I'm gonna have to get creative at mealtimes...

[Pajarita]

Hmmm, I would not feed a plet pellets. Actually, I would not feed pellets to any parrot. I've done research on parrots natural diets for 20 years and I can assure you pellets are NOT the best dietary option for them and most especially NOT the high potency which are a bomb of protein and way too many vitamins (it used to have a warning on the label that said that they were to be used only temporarily for sick birds or birds that had been on an all seed diet for years but no longer do and I don't know why because the formula has not changed). Pellets are the easy answer but not the best one: waaaaay too dry for an animal which evolved to eat a diet with 85 to 95% moisture and which derives most of their hydration needs from it; man-made vitamins which are not utilized as effectively as natural ones; unknown levels of protein (very dangerous); no phytonutrients whatsoever; feed grade ingredients versus human grade; soy (with its goitrogenic and estrogenic side effects), etc. The truth is that people used to swear by pellets a few years ago but more and more are now switching to a fresh food diet... Unfortunately, it seems that most (not all) avian vets have not done any thorough research on their own about this because they keep on recommending them (their text books don't cover parrot nutrition, only general avian one and very little at that and mostly geared toward fowl diet).

Yes, clostridium only becomes a problem with depressed immune systems... it's the same as aspergillus. Healthy birds don't get the disease, only stressed out ones, so I would do the same thing you were recommended, keep a very vigilant eye on her and just keep on doing what you are doing (I would certainly not recommend changing diets at this critical point, either -you don't want to 'rock the boat' right now, know what I mean?). But for the poor baby to have such a depressed immune system that he actually died from it, something was going on in there way before he came to you...

[thesilversakura]

Hmmm. I think I'll rein the pellets in then, until I know she's okay. If I do end up giving them to her, I'm probably going to make them in a mash anyway and it won't make up a large part of her diet. The wholegrain mash/fruit and veg breakfast with seeds for dinner still seems like the best way from what I've read on here, it doesn't feel right giving a parrot little grains of something that looks exactly the same, they seem to relish variety - and why wouldn't they, it's natural! Mealtimes are more than just getting nutrients, they're a group event, bonding almost. Peach never eats unless I'm in the room, and when I have my tea she always starts eating with me. There's a reason she chucks her peas at me...

(Soy, oh hell no. Even I don't eat/drink soy, despite being on a low carb diet and needing a milk replacement....I do not need to be adding extra oestrogen to my body, thank you very much. I say this while having a rod implanted in my arm giving me round the clock doses of progesterone...*ahem*)

Indeed, he was definitely sick when we got him, poor little man. I'm glad we did get him, he did not look happy in that aviary whatsoever. The partition he was in he shared with a cockatiel and they didn't seem to get on, no other birds he could interact with more than seeing and calling to. Also, only being fed seeds and water *sigh*. I'm just glad we could give him his little fluffy tunnel he slept in, his soft toy which he loved, and a few cuddles towards the end. In his last half hour he still struggled to curl up in the creases of the duvet he was lying on, and I'm glad we could give him that. It was heartbreaking watching the life leave him, but I would take that any day over him dying in the store with that man looking after him, falling from the tall perches to the floor (we're talking 6 feet here).....makes me feel ill thinking about it. I'm glad he went with a little bit of trust for the people who already loved him so much.

[Wolf]

I do not understand how a vet could say that seeds are bad for birds and recommend pellets in the next breath. If you read the ingredients and the remove the artificial ingredients, the soy, and the few dehydrated fruits and veggies that some contain you wind up with extra dry ground up seeds. So you can't recommend pellets and claim seeds are bad.
Seeds are good for birds and would be even better if they were not dehydrated and were the immature seeds as well, as this is what birds eat naturally. The problem with seeds is only in the amount of them in our captive birds diet.

[liz]

Rambo has not taken to the new diet well. I have been hiding 2 almonds under his gloop and giving him fresh vegi and fruit for breakfast. He does not want the gloop but has to taste it to get to his almonds. Hopefully he will aquire a taste for it. He is basically eating 2 almonds with vegi all day. To make sure he does not go to bed hungry, I give him half an English walnut, 2 little unsalted pretzels and some no additive bran flakes. I hate it because he gets so excited when I bring food that I know he is hungry even though he has leftovers.
I don't give Myrtle as much because she eats with us at the table and gets a share of safe food.

[thesilversakura]

I know your troubles, haha. I woke up this morning having not put any of Peach's seed mix in her bowl, only the pellets and a mix of pine nuts and other seeds I made myself to try and entice her. She yelled at me for about an hour, very very loudly, before I caved and put her seed in another bowl. Even if I tried weaning her onto pellets now, it would not go well. She does like to tell me when she's hungry!

She also seems to think I'm her mate...She's done the wiggle necking regurgitation in front of me a few times now, which I've discouraged and held back on the scritches for a while in case all the affection was encouraging it....but I've just seen her eat, go up to her perch, wiggle neck like crazy for five minutes, and eat her own regurgitated food without me paying any attention to her. Yummy...? (This little bird never ceases to confuse me haha)

[Wolf]

I neither encourage nor discourage this behavior and especially with Keeta, my little parrotlet. I see her doing this to settle the food in her crop while eating, I see that while it can be a sexual behavior that it is also used by her as just a show of affection, more akin to a greeting than to anything else. I have noted on many occasions that one specific behavior may have more than one meaning and if you don't think in terms of this it is very easy to get confused about what they are trying to communicate to you.
As to her thinking of you as a mate, well of course she does. They only form so many types of bonds with others, the first one is the one of the child to the parent as they are totally dependent on their parents. The second one begins when they start leaving the nest with their parents and it is the flock bond and the third one is after they release the parent child dependency bond and it is the mate bond. As far as I am aware of these are the only bonds that they form.
I have my doubts that she likes to tell you when she is hungry, they are both independent and intelligent creatures and I know that I don't like to have to tell anyone that I am hungry unless I am inviting them to share a meal with me. Since they are captive and do not have the access to foods the way that we do they are dependent upon us to give them food, sort of like having to beg for food and I can't think of that as a like. But that is just my thoughts on it and not a scientific fact.
I would start her off with some finely chopped or shredded fruits and vegetables and a leafy green also shredded for her and some half cooked whole grains with some of her seeds sprinkled on top or even some mixed in until she starts eating the healthier whole grains and then start adding a cooked vegetable in with the whole grains and then eliminate the seeds from this and only feed the seeds for her evening meal. I also do not feed pellets to any of my birds and I have excellent results with their blood work.
By the way do you have anymore pictures of her that you would care to share with us? I really like pictures.

[Pajarita]

Yes, start her off with a simple gloop of just grains cooked al dente (soft on the outside and hard in the inside), mixed with a bit of her seed. Take the seeds out of her cage when she falls asleep at night or before it gets light in the morning and give her the gloop when you turn on the overhead light in the room where she is kept which should happen when the sun is out (but do the leafy green and raw produce as soon as it begins to get light). She will start by eating only the seeds but, on the second or third day, she will start eating the grains, too - and once you consistently find the little empty grain 'skins' in or around her dish, you can start reducing the seeds you are mixing in until there are none, and adding veggies to it. Start with fresh corn (they all love it), once she is eating it well, add baby peas - then cooked and finely chopped carrots - then chopped broccoli - then squash (I use butternut) cubes - then baked sweet potatoes in chunks - like that until you have a gloop that is 50% veggies and 50% grains and pulses (you can add white -not colored ones- beans and lentils to it but make sure they are thoroughly cooked with high heat).

Now, if you haven't been giving her any fortified food or supplements, you need to give her a good quality powdered (not drops) multivitamin/mineral supplement (please use only avian ones) for about two weeks and then twice a week for two more weeks going down to once a week at a dosage of 1.5 to 2 times the daily dosage because it's the only way to get vit D3 into them.

If she is regurgitating this time of the year, you need to reconsider her light schedule as well as her diet because she shouldn't be producing that many sexual hormones any longer...