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

[thesilversakura]

Thanks Wolf, watching like a hawk can make you a bit paranoid, especially when it's about your baby. My mother would be furious if I had children now but I imagine this is what it's like

Been looking at a health food store, and they have all the whole grains you can imagine. The have 'jumbo oats' which look a lot like oat groats in the picture so I'm assuming that's what they are, they have wheat bran, all sorts of wholegrain rice, three colours of lentils, bulgur wheat (?), millet, chia seeds, flaxseed, all kinds of nuts and seeds....and all organic! What would be a good gloopy mix for her, apart from the oats, wheat and rice? They're going in there without question, obviously. I'll start adding her favourite veggies in a few days, she's getting the hang of the gloop but I can tell she's hungry, haha.

[Pajarita]

I only use whole grains and as natural as I can find them so, for example, I get hulled barley instead of dehulled or pearled. I use oat groats, wheat kernels (hard red winter in the warm months and soft white spring for the winter), hulled barley, kamut, black (japonica) and red (wehani) rice, black lentils (I used to use regular lentils but the black ones -aka caviar lentil- are like little balls and they cook without becoming mushy so my birds like them better), small white beans (I don't use any colored ones, only white, they are lower in the bad toxin all beans have). After the grains are cooked and mixed with the beans and frozen (and previously blanched) veggies to get a 50% grain/bean and 50% veggies, I add flax and sesame seed to the mixture.

[thesilversakura]

Brilliant, with a little searching I've found all of those ingredients so I can get started on a better mash for her tomorrow, thank you so much!

(another thing I've found...despite going on the Atkins diet three months ago and massively increasing my veggie intake from nearly zero to having them with every meal, Peach still eats better than I do! So does my dog, she has to be on the best hypoallergenic food haha. They get frequent walks/out of cage time and cuddles, socialisation, good sleep schedules etc - Isn't it funny how one tends to treat their animals better than they treat themselves...she says in her pyjamas in bed, in the middle of the day )

[Wolf]

Most people have a tendency to try to treat their companion animals very well to a fault. By this I mean that some go overboard in providing the very best and as a result that the animal may become obese, or have its immune system compromised from to many vitamins and minerals of the wrong kind and so forth. Sometimes more is not better.

[Pajarita]

Yes, it is funny... I not only cook organic for the parrots while I give my husband frozen pizza but buy 4 types of dry kibble (kitten, senior, delicate digestion and outdoor for the ferals) and 3 types of canned food (kitten, regular and cheapie for the ferals) for the cats, plus 3 kinds of dry for the dogs (senior, adult and allergy) and two kinds of canned (allergy and regular) as well as 5 different kinds of treats (marrow treats for the old blind one which doesn't eat anything other kind, soft bacon treats for 'dessert' after dinner and puppy, small and large milk bones). Maybe it's more crazy than funny...

[thesilversakura]

I'm so sorry for not replying sooner, I've had some very busy times since I last posted. Thank god it's settled down now. I have some photos of Peach since Wolf requested them, and I love showing her off, hehe.








She just loves sitting on heads and snuggling in my hair. She burrowed into my neck and made herself a little hair nest and fell asleep once

Good news! We found a small scale budgie and cockatiel breeder not very far from where we live about 5 days ago. She has an absolute menagerie of animals, is mad as a box of frogs (in a good way) and obviously works very hard with her birds. She has an aviary outside, with her budgies, cockatiels and finches in, with nestboxes where they're sitting on chicks. She has an African Grey and a Cockatoo inside, as well as her other house birds, and they're all in fantastic condition and are fed pretty much what I feed Peach.

I was going to wait and see how her cockatiel chicks turned out, since they hatched 4 days ago, but she had one baby boy left from the old clutch (fully weaned, feathered, energetic and happy) a lutino. They seem to be parent reared but she does handle the babies a lot so taming would be quite easy, despite him being in an aviary at the moment. We did our quizzing this time, saw her other birds, asked what she does with them, feeding, etc etc. I felt much more comfortable this time around than I did when we got Houdini, god rest his soul. We're bringing him home tomorrow! My mother wants to call him Boris after the Mayor of London, who's famous for his personality and crazy blonde hair, but we shall see

I hope to god he and Peach get on at the end of the quarantine period when I put them in the same room, it would be wonderful for her to have a friend. I'm well aware that despite me spending pretty much all day with her, she needs more than what I can give. Whatever's best for her, I will do. She is a feisty madam though!

I really have been bitten with the bird bug, guys. *sighs happily*

[Wolf]

Congratulations on the new cockatiel. Don't expect a lot as far as these two being great friends. It might happen but you need to be very careful as the parrotlet is a much more aggressive of a bird than the cockatiel. Parrotlets are not known for readily accepting other birds and even can be very difficult to get them to accept another bird of their own species. I too, will hope that they will get along at least well enough to be out of their cages at the same time, but you do need to know the other side of this as well for the safety and well being of both birds.

[thesilversakura]

Indeed, I've heard the horror stories, bad toe injuries and worse Parrotlets are so strong willed, I'm just hoping that since she is generally calm and isn't a bitey girl she'll be a little bit more chilled with the new addition. I'm going to be very very careful with her, most of the animals I've had have been females with attitude no matter the species! Speaking of such, is there anything species specific I should know about cockatiels, anything that needs to be done differently? I've done my reading but the best advice is from people with first hand knowledge, and you all are so helpful

[Pajarita]

Well, weirder things have happened (I know of a cockatoo bonded to a sun conure and I had a quaker bonded to a lovie) but it's not likely that a plet would bond with a tiel... But how do you know the tiel is a boy?

[thesilversakura]

I mistakenly assumed she had him DNA sexed, but she said no. She assumes he is a boy because he was apparently fed a lot later by his parents, according to her the females tend to stop being fed by the parents earlier. Whether or not this is true I do not know, perhaps one of you could shed some light on that? Either way it doesn't matter, we might have him DNA sexed when he is hand tame but obviously not now.

He's a little baldy too, got a patch behind his crest with one pin feather on it, but I know this is a recessive trait. I'll get some photos once he's settled in a bit more, we just brought him home. I wish I could take him in the same room as Peach so he had some like minded company, but alas, quarantine rules are rules, especially after what happened last time. I'm going to make him some nice warm mash now, apparently she feeds all her birds a bit of warm egg food every day (I know, I know) so he should like it. Still got to think of a good name for the little man