Happy New Years from California

[LPolliard]

This forum is awesome. I am learning so much.

I recently took on a beautiful male Ekkie. My Ex and my 13 yr old daughter just moved to PA and chose to take only two of their many parrots. I have owed other parrots in my distant past but never a hand fed, very tame and social bird like Chico. In the first week we are comfortable enough with each other that he allowed me to flip him on his back and hold him in my hand. I look forward to using Micheal's training technique to be able to pick him up directly to put him in this position. I have already started to get him comfortable with me petting his back. Now I know how to use positive reinforcement to get faster results thanks to this forum. I believe not knowing how to properly tame my previous birds shortened our relationship. I look forward to many years with Chico.

We will post our accomplishments.
Leroy &

[sidech]

Happy new Year to you too !

You'll have lots of fun with your Ekkie ! Do you know about their specific diet requirements ? They can't be fed commercial foods or it will slowly kill them. It should be about 40% vegetables, mostly orange, 40% sprouted seeds, 10% fruits, 5% small seeds and 5% various others, including rice, quinoa and such. NO PELLETS, or a very small quantity (like 8 pellets a day) with no color, no vitamins and no preservatives added. You should subscribe to Laurella Desborough's newsletter about Ekkies, you will learn so much. The most knowledgeable Eclectus people on the planet are on it.

The Ekkie smilie is on the second page, you got the ringneck...

Cheers !

[LPolliard]

Thanks for your reply. I will subscribe to the newsletter. I was concerned about his diet. They fed him a seed mix (includes pasta, dried fruit, and nuts) which was prescribed by a very well known/large exotic bird shop in my area. They also supplemented with fresh fruits and vegetables. I will quiz them on his diet as well as read up on it. Chico is a junk food junkie and I have already cut him back on this after reading about how Ekkies should not have a lot of fatty foods. On his first night my daughter tried to feed him a quarter of my hamburger!?!? I put a stop to that very quickly. His favorite treat is cheese. He doesn't seem to like oranges.

I looked for the Ekkie smilie and didn't realize there was a second page.

Thanks!

[sidech]

Be careful with the cheese, it's not very good for them. Try pomegranate, he will flip over it !

Here are a few good links about Ekkie nutrition. You might want to subscribe to this australian Ekkie forum as well

Graham Taylor, world reknowned Eclectus specialist

http://www.eclectus-parrots.com/page06_diet.htm

Serious breeder

http://www.australeclectus.com/diet.cfm

Australian forum (she lost all data on the old forum that had been going on for years, and started a new one, that's why there are not that many posts, but it's growing back slowly)

http://eclectusparrots.net/diets.html

Also check out the Land of Vos, very good site.

See you around, my name is Dechi on the Australian forum.

[GlassOnion]

Welcome! That 'knowledgeable' store isn't knowledgeable at all!! Like Sidech said, Ekkies NEED fresh foods. Commercial foods will kill them in long run. If it doesn't kill them, they could end up with horribly plucked feathers and allergies that may be permanent.