new to parrots need guidance

[Srishti]

hello everybody,

i am Srishti from India. i was fascinated with having a green parrot since childhood and since the past few months i have been fascinated to a greater extent. after seeing my fascination towards having a parrot one my friend is gifting me a parrot on my birthday which is 6 days ahead. am so glad that i found this forum i have been reading topics regarding parrot care since the last night

i want to be fully equiped and tarined to take care of the bird before the new member enters my room. am very exited and happy with the fact of having a parrot.i request you to please guide me with the initial steps of parrot care. also please suggest me a beginner's guide books on parrot care for online reading.

it sounds a bit lame but, i do not know anything about my birthday gift parrot except for the fact that it is green in color and has a red beak neither does my friend knows because he also purchased it with great difficulty through his friends . my friend is not ready to send me a picture of the parrot before my birthday and insists highly on giving the bird after a week only.( i guess most probably it is a 5-6 months old indian ringneck )

the parrot has been already purchased and is living in my friend's home who has some knowledge about bird care. it will be with him for another six days.
will shifting of homes upset the parrot ? am really concerned about the emotional well being of the bird. i want to gain its trust and keep him happy and satisfied

the seller said that it can eat on its own , he demonstrated that too, but am not trusting him even a least bit. since it is a baby will i have to hand feed it? also please tell me that which brand pellets should i buy for it

please guide me through this situation, i will be very thankful to your valuable guidance.

[Wolf]

How old are you ? It doesn't matter to me but it could impact your ability to care for the parrot. If you are a minor, you may have to count on your parents for things like medical care or other things that you would need for your bird.
It is not possible for you to be fully trained to care for your bird, especially in 6 days, I have had my birds for 3 years and am learning more about them every day. Maybe someone else can point you in the right direction as far as books that could help you, but I don't know of any. But we can still help you.
You are going to need a very large cage for your bird as its main cage and a smaller one for taking the bird to the vets or to take your bird outside for a little sunshine or any other place you may take the bird. If the bird is a ringneck it will be about 16 inches long, You probably use the metric system which I don't know very well so you will have to convert my sizes yourself, sorry. That means that it will have a wingspan of about 30 inches. The smallest cage for this bird main cage would have to be. as close to 60 inches long, 24 inches deep and 60 inches high, but other than this get the largest cage size that you can, I would go with a bar spacing of 3/4 inch.
I don't know how old your bird is but it sounds like a baby so it is likely that you may have to handfeed it with some warm, soft food a couple of times a day to begin with.
Any form of rehoming of a parrot is stressful for them and going from your friends home to yours will be no different as the bird loses all that it knew and is placed in a new environment with strange new people that it doesn't know so it will be terrified. This is a difficult time for the bird because it is scared but it needs to get to know you and climatize to the sound of your voice as well as your presence. A ringneck is a very needy bird and needs a lot of interaction every day. They are not easy birds to keep happy.
This is just a few of the basics and no amount of reading or study can prepare you for the realities of keeping a parrot, like the rest of us you will learn the most from taking care of the bird and asking lots of questions.

[Srishti]

Thanku for the help!
Ill look for a cage as big as possible. When my parrot gets a acclimatized to my home will it still be mad at me for shifting his home frequently?? Will it affect the bond between us?
How do I shift him from one cage to another? Is grabbing and putting in the other cage only option available or is there any other gentle way to do that?
Am 23 years old, i hope am able to feed and take care of him properly.

[Wolf]

When possible for a bird that is afraid of me I will open a door on both gages and place them together so that the bird can go to the new cage but not escape and place food and water in the new cage and let the bird move itself. The bird is not mad at you, it does not even know you, but it is scared. And no this does not need to affect the bond. The first bond with you will be like that of mother and child and then if you are the only one available when the bird goes through puberty then it is likely to bond with you with the more permanent mate bond which is the one you really want to form.

[Pajarita]

Welcome to the forum. Yes, a green bird with a red beak sounds like an IRN but, for what I have read about India and its native birds, it's illegal to keep any native birds in cages, you do know that, don't you? And it might very well be the reason why it was so difficult for your friend to find one... It's the same thing here in USA, you can keep foreign birds in cages but not native ones so please find out if there are any exceptions to this law before you get the bird. I would not recommend you keep a bird that can easily survive in its own natural habitat as a pet in a cage...

[Srishti]

Thanku for the help
I got him home today!! He was not eating anything at my frien's place so pe were planning to him to the vet.But when I fed him with apples he ate it all. Maybe it's his favorite! It will help me in taining him :p
He won't eat anything except apples what else should I give him?? He has had 1 apple already I hagiven him boiled rice guava cucumbers but he is not eating anything of it
Earlier he was trying to get out of the cage and became very restless. Seeing hum restless I covered the two sides of the cage from a newspaper. Did I do the right thing??
He has finally crammed down. I have played songs I guess he is enjoying it he is calm now!!

I named him buddy!!

[Wolf]

Try eating oranges and bananas in front of him and share with him if he shows interest in them, also try some leafy greens with him. Since he is as young as he is try some warm soft food for him. Maybe some brown or wild rice mixed with the most chemical free vegetable based baby food that you can find and make it warm like for a baby as you don't want it hot or you will burn his crop. It should feel slightly warm on your inner wrist. Try that a couple of times a day and give a canary or budgie seed mix for dinner. Lots of fruits and veggies for breakfast. Consider feeding him this :
viewtopic.php?f=8&t=13666

[Pajarita]

My dear, please see this: http://pets.indiatimes.com/articleshow. ... =669079351 You can go to jail for five years for keeping him in a cage. Please reconsider. You can't spend the bird's entire life hiding him from authorities... you wouldn't even be able to take him to a veterinarian if he got sick!

[Wolf]

You said you were going to take this bird to see the vet, let me know how that goes, please.

[Pajarita]

I seriously doubt she can take him to any good vet because, if she did, he would have to report her to the authorities. It's the same here in the States, you can't cage native birds so, although there are people who keep birds like indigo buntings, Baltimore orioles and Virginia cardinals in cages, they have to keep them hidden and without medical attention. Also, all native birds kept in cages are most always poached (much cheaper than breeding them).

See these articles about IRNs found in cages in India which were all confiscated and later released into the wild (it has been illegal in India to keep them as pets since 1972 but, as you can see, the poaching and black market is still going):

http://www.nigeriadailynews.com/news/18 ... arrot.html

http://www.thehindu.com/news/cities/Coi ... 012025.ece

http://www.conservationindia.org/galler ... -jharkhand

http://www.thehindu.com/features/metrop ... 811785.ece