What kind of scale do you use?

[Michael]

I assume you weigh Truman 3 times because of his recent injury....Will you continue daily once he is fully recovered??

I was weighing as often prior to the injury as well. Basically I don't just want to know what the bird weighs on average. I like to track the range of weight. I try to find the bird's minimum and maximum weights both on a daily basis and in general. So rather than saying Truman weighs 312g today. I weighed him after his big morning poop (but prior to eating) so I knew he was a low of 305g and then after he ate/drank he was 315g. So I know his range and I know how much he is taking in. I'm not using any food management at the moment but it definitely helps to know how much they need for safe rationing. So the 3 typical weighings I do are empty morning weight, full morning weight, and then full pre-sleep weight. If I'm managing weight for training then I'll also want to know the weight prior to each training session.

Listen, it's SOOO easy to weigh the parrot so why not? It's a routine for me. The parrot doesn't mind because he knows he must step on the scale after coming out of the cage before he can go anywhere else. The scale is digital so there really is no more effort beyond turning it on and reading the number. By doing this it helps me keep in tune with not only the parrots' long term health but also day to day fluctuations based on mood or weather.

[entrancedbymyGCC]

I think the argument against weighing every day is probably the same as for a person -- you can get so involved in the short term fluctuations that you miss the long term trends. Especially if you try to change anything based on the reading.

That said, I think as long as one is aware of that and has a perspective on data and uncertainty, there is no harm and you can get a better average number.

[jayebird]

I use a regular kitchen scale in grams. Mango is still so new to our house that I weigh him once or twice a day (morning sometimes, but always evenings) so that we can get used to his minimums and maximums. Keeping track of the minutiae on a graph can help you to look at it long term and put weight variations in perspective of normal and abnormal.

We're also planning on switching his diet from seed+Zupreem to straight up Roudybush starting in the next week or two so we'll need to know his regular weight range to monitor the feed switch and make sure he's maintaining a healthy weight. If you're changing anything in the parrot's environment (diet, cage, etc) it's a good idea to "go back" to weighing more often (at least daily) to check for health issues. Regular maintenance I would say weight at least a couple of times per week.

Change can stress some birds out so it can affect their health or eating habits. In the case of a diet switch, missing food from the food bowl does not necessarily guarantee that the bird is eating (he may just be chucking it onto the floor) so knowing his normal weight and keeping track of that will tell you if he's making the switch or not.

Parrots are good at hiding illnesses and a weight change may be the first sign - and since they generally are so light, only a few grams could be a large percentage of their overall normal weight that they really can't afford to lose. Sorry for rambling, you probably know most of this already