How to age a fully feathered cockatiel?

[christie]

I work at a local shelter in which a cockatiel has been turned in as a "stray". The person turning him and said they discovered him on their front porch unable to fly so they were concerned that the bird was hurt. After an examination it was determined that he was fully feathered, seemed healthy but on the very skinny side and he could fly, just very clumsy.

I've raised a few baby birds before as pets, and his behaviors remind me very much of when they were first learning to fly and walk and climb around their cage.

He (and I'm guessing after sex) is fully feathered, eats bird bread and Harrison's pellets just fine, but only weighs 72 g (and gaining) at the moment. from the charts I've been able to see this weight should put him at under six weeks of age, which I don't think is accurate. At what age do cockatiels generally start learning and mastering the flight skills?

We put out notices and had the person who found him put out notices in their neighborhood to see if anyone has lost a bird and so far we haven't had any success in finding the owners.

Any ideas on age? He lives the bird bread and any bread he can steal (I let him stay with me when I eat lunch), but seems completely uninterested in fruits and veggies.

Any ideas on age and/or what else I can offer him to eat? As I said he is eating the pellets and bird bread, but I feel like he should be eating something else too.

Thank you!

[Pajarita]

Tiels sizes and weights vary from individual to individual but you can't go by weight alone when you are trying to figure out their age, especially if he is skinny, as you said. You also can't use flight as an indicator because a bird that was not allowed to fledge and then kept in a cage would be a clumsy flier even when old. To answer your question about guessing his age, you can go by their legs, feet and beak but, in truth, it's more a guessing game than anything else because a young bird that was not cared for properly will look much, much older than an old bird that was. Birds don't age like mammals do.

As to fruits, I still put a piece of fruit out for mine but I've kind of given up on all of them eating it. Out of over 60 tiels that I've cared for, I think I've had 5 that actually enjoyed a piece of apple and that's about it. But they do LOVE their greens (mine get a different one every day) and they can learn to eat some veggies as long as they are little (like baby peas and corn) or chopped up (like broccoli, green beans, cooked and diced carrots, baked sweet potatoes, sugar snaps, etc). I don't feed my birds pellets because I don't think they are the healthiest option, I feed them gloop (a dish made out of cooked whole grains, pulses and veggies) and I trick them into eating more produce that way because, for example, they would never go for a bowl with regular blueberries or a piece of a pomegranate but, if I mix the wild blueberries (which are tiny) or the actual pomegranate seeds in the gloop, they would eat them.

[christie]

Thank you for the suggestions. I've mostly worked with the larger parrots and conures, which ingeneral I've seen to be fruit/veggie nuts, but tiels I've never really worked with so him not eating veggies bothered me. I feel better now. I'll have to come up with someother concoction similar to what your talking about for him too. I'll try more greens with him too.

I have to say he "looks" young, feet, beak and feathers. He's actually quite handsome. I have to admit, cockatiels have never been my favorite birds in "looks" but I had to say as soon as I say this one was, "wow! He's pretty" I think he's a pied. If I can figure out again how to download a picture I will as well. His head is bright yellow and lightens as it goes down his body. Bright orange cheeks and symmetrical grey spots on his wings.

He is super sweet but defensive/skiddish at the same time. I'm tryin to go as slow as possible with him and let him think it's his idea to come and see me or snuggle some. But even when he is defensive he does not bite hard at all. He's doing better with step up in tr last few days, but the first time I tried it he looked at me like I was nuts and didn't know what to do.

lol, I have a feeling once he goes his 30 day quarenteene and I get him checked out by an avian vet (my donation to the shelter, small budgets suck), I'll probably "foster" him to see how he does with my little man. If they can co-habitat I think he will be happy with me. lol, I'm a sucker for the birds, it's probably a good thing we don't get many at work or I'd be in real trouble!