by Pajarita » Mon Jan 15, 2018 10:57 am
Welcome to the forum and congratulations on your new baby! Quakers are excellent eaters and they love produce so you will have no problem whatsoever getting him/her to eat a good, varied diet. They should get produce every single day [they ADORE corn on the cob!].
There are two things that you need to be careful with them: the most important one is the light schedule. These birds come from the temperate zone in South America [I know that most sites say they are tropical birds but they are not, they come from the country where I was born and raised and it's NOT a tropical country] so they NEED, even more so than other species of parrots, a very strict solar schedule with full exposure to dawn and dusk [failing to do this will make the bird overly hormonal -read: aggression, screams and plucking]. The second is a good diet not high in protein [there aren't that many seeds or nuts that grow naturally in their natural habitat so they mostly eat fresh plant material -although they do destroy entire crops of grains] so they should never be free-fed pellets, seeds, nuts, nutriberries, etc. A good gloop, chop, mash or 'kitchen sink' in the morning accompanied by fresh produce and a measured amount of a good quality seed/nut mix with a couple of doses a week of a multivitamin/mineral supplement does the trick.