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

[Pajarita]

Well, lutinos can be real hard to visually sex but, sometimes, if you wait until he is an adult, you can tell by the vocalizations (not always though). And, yes, there are lutinos that carry the baldness pattern... Thing is, good breeders don't breed them but I guess yours doesn't know about that.

It is true that, sometimes, one can tell by the baby's behavior whether it's male or female. I had gotten real good at guessing with my canaries (you can't tell until they are 3 to 4 months old) but it's a real iffy way of sexing them, of course. And even more so with parrots because, usually and unlike canariculturists, parrot breeders don't take the eggs out as they are laid and replace them when the clutch is complete so they can be incubated all at the same time so you always end up with clutches where babies have days and days of difference and the 'younger' ones would appear smaller and to need their parents longer.

[thesilversakura]

We've decided on the name Rocky, after The Rock himself. Told you it'd be something to do with his baldness! I put a soft toy in his cage today and he reacted pretty well, stayed on his perch and moved to the back of the cage but didn't panic. Eaten all his millet but not touched his gloop today, oh well. I'll leave him in there for a couple more days to adjust, maybe one more depending on how settled he looks. Then we'll start letting him out and let him explore the room. He's got a lovely loud voice, even louder than Peach which I didn't think was possible. I don't mind one bit though, it really is a joy to hear birds calling imo. So far the little lady hasn't responded, she's never seen or heard a cockatiel in her life, even though she reacted to Houdini's noises which are more like hers. That will be interesting!

(I made the big mistake of not spending much time with her yesterday what with grocery shopping, getting Rocky home and a surprise allergic reaction, so when I went to get her out of her cage I got two little bites, as if to say 'Well, where the hell have you been?! Never mind, I'm not interested any more.' - that'll teach me! )

[Wolf]

Keeta will bite me if I am lax in letting her out for her morning play time, which she dearly loves. There is not really much other than that, that she gets mad at me about, but this is very high on her short list of don't do this to me things.

[Pajarita]

Mix a bit of millet seeds in the gloop and don't put any high protein food in the cage until the evening when he should get his seed mix for dinner.

As to her biting you, that'll show you to mess around with her schedule!

[thesilversakura]

He's not eating much of anything at the moment, had a few seeds when I put them in his cage earlier (he hasn't eaten for several days and calls out constantly for food, I feel awful) and absolutely gorges on millet, he flies to my hand for it even though a few days ago he only just got on my finger with a lot of slow coaxing. He hulls it in less than a second, he's so quick! Peach is a dainty little girl in comparison, haha. I made him a simple mash, mixed some seeds in since he had some of those, and sprinkled millet on the top so he could eat that, but nothing. Do I retract the millet completely and just put simple parakeet seed in for now, since that's what I've had the most luck with? It does have some millet in the mix already, which might coax him.

He just seems to want out of his cage, all of the time. I can tell he would benefit immensely from being allowed out 24/7 since he LOVES flying, but due to quarantine he's staying in my mother's room and can only be allowed out when one of us is present due to the stairs to the kitchen downstairs having no door (my room is the only truly parrot proof room in the house, plus I spend nearly all my time in there. My mother doesn't spend much time in her room). We're taking it in turns at the moment to stay up there with him, he calls constantly otherwise. The problem is our dog for some reason has taken an unhealthy shine to him and shrieks constantly when we go up there (she's killed small animals before being a terrier so I don't trust her at all, but she never usually pays attention to Peach whatsoever), so we can't both be there at the same time. It's hard work and I hate having to do this quarantine because he's clearly such a sociable and friendly bird despite not trusting anyone or anything in the house properly yet. He doesn't like his toys, he just wants to eat millet and fly around. I can't blame him really!

[thesilversakura]

Okay, he is NOT happy in his cage. Pacing back and forth, trying to find a way out constantly, calling to me and literally not doing anything else. His cage size isn't a problem, but we are going to be getting him a much bigger one very soon (my mantra is buy the best you can afford, adequate doesn't ring well with me haha) and will be moving house soon as well, so I'll have a special bird room at last! I feel so sorry for him, I know interaction is especially important for young birds as they develop, and we're spending most of the day with him, but he just isn't happy unless the cage is open and he can fly whenever he wants. Thankfully the sun is setting so he'll be calming down soon (hopefully) and will get some sleep. Peach resigned herself to her sleeping perch ages ago!

[Wolf]

As far as the gloop goes I would mix some seed mix in it for as long as it takes for him to start eating it. Just don't use a lot of seeds as he will pick out the seeds and not the rest of the food. The gloop does not taste bad and I have many time sit down and nibbled on the gloop in front of them to get them to start eating it. His biggest problem with eating the gloop is that he does not perceive it as being food.
Baby parrot must learn from their parent birds what is food as well as how to eat it, they are not born with this knowledge. The parent birds teach them what to eat as well as how to eat and drink. When we acquire a young bird who is supposedly weaned, we at that point become the birds parent with all of the parental responsibilities even if we don't know what all that entails. It is why the bird bonds to us at this stage of its life, this is the parent/ child bond and normally lasts until puberty at which time it is released and the bird seeks a mate to bond with, this is the actual bond that we are seeking when we get a bird as a companion.
The best way to get this young bird to start eating the gloop is to mix some of its seed mix in with its daily portion of gloop and in addition to that you should sit down and share the meal with the baby bird by eating some of it in front of the bird making a big show of how wonderful this food is. That is how the parent bird does it. Try to understand that for a parrot of any age that the sharing of food is not only a social activity it is also a bonding activity as well.
As to time out of the cage, I see no reason that you can't let the bird out of the cage in the room that he is in if you are in the room to keep it from getting into trouble. This is easier if the room is bird proofed, but still can be done without the room being bird proofed as long as someone is there to watch the bird and keep it safe. My birds are in my living room which is by no means totally bird proof so they are only out when I am there.

[thesilversakura]

Okey dokes, I'll keep trying. I've been doing a lot of the pretend eating with Peach to get her onto mash, she's so inquisitive it's hilarious. I do the whole 'mmmhm, yummy yummy!' (She associates 'yummy yummy' with millet or something good) and she comes right over, when I hold it out for her she always takes a bite. I'll have to do that with him despite him not being so good with hands yet (will step up and come to you if you have millet, but moves away from your hand otherwise).

Wolf, I should clarify: Rocky is allowed out the cage in the room he's in, he just has to be supervised due to there being no door on the steps leading down to the kitchen. No one spends much time in my mother's room, not even my mother, so we have to take it in turns while the other person goes and does something else or he calls constantly when he's in his cage and/or alone. Our dog is obsessed with him and we have to keep her in the rest of the house when we supervise Rocky, but she shrieks and barks and whines so loudly we have to keep taking turns supervising her or it drives us and the neighbours nuts. We're thinking of putting her bark collar back on it's so bad...If someone is up there with Rocky, she's completely focused on it and because Rocky cannot be alone (he really can't, poor thing) we have to do it 24/7. *sigh*

[Wolf]

I do understand the problem, however I may have misunderstood how much time out of the cage he is getting. Could you put up a pet/ kid gate across the stairway to prevent the dog from getting up the stairs and then use one of those " magicscreens" across the top of the stairs to keep the bird in? I built a gate across one door way at my house to keep our dogs out of the kitty litter and use a " magic screen" across the doorway between the kitchen and living room to keep the birds out of the kitchen. This has worked at my house for over two years.

[liz]

What is a magic screen?