Stress bars/ Poor feather development?

[RileyRumbles]

I have a 1 yr 3 mnth old cockatiel, Riley. When I first got him, he had already been clipped so he had not yet learned how to fly. Because of this, whenever I took him out, he would fly backwards, landing on his tail feathers. Eventually all of them broke in half and he was essentially a duck butt.

I've had him for about 9 months now. The two outer tail feathers have come in fine, but all of the ones in the middle keep falling out. If they don't fall out, they come out in curved shapes, and the barbs are broken - it looks like they are stress bars.

I am wondering if it is a diet problem. He doesn't act stressed at all, and most of what we do on a daily basis is routine. His cage is 31W x 22D x 59H inches with 1/2 inch bar spacing. He has natural branches, toys he loves to tear apart (I have to replace some of them weekly or monthly depending), ladders, interactive wheels and foraging toys he loves to play with. Even though his cage is big I take him out as often as I can. We eat all of our meals together. He's a very happy little bird. I'm not sure what could cause stress bars. Are there any big things I should check for that causes stress?

He is currently on a 30% pellet, 70% seed diet. The pellets are Kaytee brand- Exact Natural. They're very very small pellets. The seed is Kaytee Healthy Support Diet - the one with Egg-Cite! on the lower right hand corner, claiming there is real egg in the mixture. I hand pick out all of the sunflower seeds, so he doesn't get any of those. He also eats an extremely small amount of cuttlebone and the occasional sprig of millet. He currently will not take any fruits or vegetables, as he prefers stuff that is crunchy. (He will spazz out if I open a Pringles can near him- he loves to watch me eat them solely to hear the crunching sounds.) He also has a honey treat stick that attaches to the side of his cage- something hard for him to chew on when I'm at work. It keeps him occupied.

I wonder if it's the absence of fruit/veggies that is causing the problem? How do I get him to eat it?
Also, he's only had a few of the middle tail feathers attempt to come in. Do they usually take this long to grow? Some of the broken ones still haven't fallen out.

[liz]

Welcome to the forum.

He does not have a flock to learn from. Are you eating your veggies? Put down the potato chips and pick up some celery. It crunches. While watching you offer him a bite.

That is my 2 cents. Other members to follow.

[Wolf]

Everything that you are feeding him is seeds and not much else and that is a diet that is guaranteed to kill him from liver disease. Pellets are ground seeds plus artificial vitamins and binders and they are about 10% moisture so the draw moisture from surrounding tissues. You really need to start feeding him a variety of vegetables and feed only seeds for the evening meal and removing any seeds that he has not eaten after he goes to sleep. He really needs to be fed a mixture of cooked white beans and cooked whole grains and fresh vegetables use a 50% mix of the cooked beans and grains and 50% vegetables for breakfast and for all day long with the seed mix for his dinner. Start him with the cooked whole grains cooked al dente and sprinkle a little of his seed mix on top of it until he begins to eat the grains and then start adding the vegetables in.

your bird needs to spend about 3 to 4 hours each day out of the cage with at least one hour of this time in physical contact with you. this will improve your birds mental, physical and emotional well being. He needs to do just like the birds that live outside and get up and go to bed with the sun. Do these things if you want to have a healthier and happier bird.

[Pajarita]

Yes, gloop for breakfast is the way to go but give him a nice piece of a different green every day, too. I've never had any luck giving them fruits (I still put a piece of the daily one in their flight cage but they never eat it except for pomegranate seeds) but they do love leafy greens (all lettuces except iceberg, escarole, chicory, Swiss Chard -they love the red one-, nappa/green/red/savoy cabbage, etc) and veggies (try corn on the cob VERY lightly cooked so it's still crispy and juicy, grated carrots, baked sweet potato and baby peas -mine love all of them). Also, cuttlebone (they love to chew on it) and some vitamins once a week (mostly for the vit D3).

[RileyRumbles]

That sounds 10x healthier. Can the beans/veggies be canned?

I found this recipe, should I feed this to him every morning?:

1-1/2 great northern beans (dry)
1 cup cooked brown rice
1 cup cooked white rice
1 carrot, chopped
1 celery stalk, chopped
1 cup frozen corn, thawed

- Soak beans overnight. Drain, rinse, refill pan with water. Add carrot and celery. Cook with beans for 1 hour. Add corn and rice and cook until rice is soft. Cool and serve. Freeze extra servings in plastic food storage bag.

That way I can cook a large portion every sunday night, then feed it to him throughout the week.
I know he wont take to it right away, but he hopefully will once I start controlling when he gets pellets and seeds.

Should he have access to said 'gloop' from morning until night? And for dinner (7 pm) he can access his pellets until his bedtime at 9 pm.

[Wolf]

The beans can be canned ,but you must rinse them to remove the salt in them. You should be able to find a bag of mixed vegetables in the frozen food section at your super market, they are called mixed vegetables. For the whole grains you can get Kashi 7 whole grains pilaf and toss the seasoning package in the trash. Mix equal parts cooked beans and the Kashi 7 whole grain pilaf and then mix this mixture with an equal part of the frozen mixed vegetables. This will give you a very basic gloop and you can freeze the excess and thaw out each days ration overnight for feeding in the morning. Give this to your bird about an hour after sunrise and leave it all day along with some fresh raw veggies and a little fruit. Then you feed them their seed mix about an hour before sunset, I am in western NC, USA so that means at this time of year dinnertime for the birds is about 3 pm. Then they need to go to bed at dark. Unless the sun is up at 8 or 9 pm then they are being kept up to late.

You can freeze the excess in plastic ice cube trays and then just thaw out the number of cubes that you need each day. I freeze in ice cube trays and then put the cubes into a plastic freezer bag until I thaw them out.

[Pajarita]

I wouldn't use that recipe as a maintenance diet, Riley, it doesn't have enough ingredients and it has white rice which is nothing but carbs with no nutritional value to speak of (I use cooked white rice for fattening sick birds, only). I also don't use the same amount of grains as I do of beans like Wolf does, beans are about 1/4 of the total grains in my gloop.

The Kashi pilaf doesn't have a seasoning package, it's just 3 envelopes of the grain mix inside the box.

[Wolf]

Working on my recipe and am reducing the beans in mine too, didn't really have a recipe to go by so I made up one for mine and have been working on it every since, eventually I will get it right. It will still be a few more days before my next batch. I was never sure about the proportions that it should have but I do keep reducing the protein in it ( beans).

[RileyRumbles]

Tricky.

1/2 great northern beans (dry)
2 cup cooked brown rice - or the kashi pilaf (for the grains)
1 cup mixed vegetables

?

Then I would mix it with his seed- I wonder if you mash it all together or leave it whole? That way I could just coat/cover his seed. Plus I wouldn't have to worry about him favoring some things while ignoring the rest.

I would make it so that the gloop doesn't outweigh the seed at first. I could mix the seed in so he couldn't take a bite without eating some of the gloop as well. Then I could just reduce the amount of seed I mix in week by week. I wonder if that would be the smoothest transition.

If I made a mash, could I also mash in fruit? (Maybe not, it wouldn't taste good.) Should I get a separate bowl to offer fresh fruits and greens? And just leave the veggies to the gloop.

[Wolf]

I would make the gloop to be 50% vegetables and I would not mash it as the size of the mixed vegetables and the beans are fine and you could chop some fruit and add that as well although I would suggest putting the fruit and leafy green vegetables on the side. I would also only sprinkle the seed mix on the gloop. you could sprinkle it heavily at first, but the purpose is to cut down on the protein and they will start eating it sooner if you don't add enough of the seeds to eliminate its hunger you want them to do that by eating the gloop.