red tailed black cockatoo help

hi i have a 94 day old rtb cockatoo she has been a pain to feed from hatch. she is crop feed now .from about a month old .she has never had a feeding response from hatch. .have been to the bird vet all-ready about this problem.she regurgitates her food after most feeds maybe half of her feed sometimes.she was on 50mls 4 times a day .have tried 25 mls per feed totaling about 150 to 200 mls per day .she is picking at pellets in the day time now not heaps.has any one else had this problem .every thing was good at vet all test negative etc .he said a habit ?but never said how to stop her .has settled down a bit over the last week or so on 25 mls per feed..could she be trying to wean her self so hard to tell as no feeding response .she is alert etc .any help would be gratefully excepted.tia

Please refer to this thread until someone more experienced can answer:

http://www.parrotforums.com/breeding-raising-parrots/74363-so-you-bought-unweaned-baby.html

You will find important info in the OP about proper formula temp, feeding technique etc... which are the most common causes for the kid of issues you describe (especially the formula being at a very precise temperature). I also wonder has your bird been tested by the vet for PDD/PBFD/AB specifically?

i hatched it from egg. i have had lots of experience with hand rearing birds from egg this is the first one that has done this .temps of food etc are correct. vet suggested trying smaller amounts of feed.

I strongly recommend you locate a breeder to converse with.

My reference is Black Palm cockatoos? but they are always one of the most difficult to weans and successfully reach adulthood, they often die at one year old for reasons unknown.

Unforntunately we don’t have any black cockatoo breeders here. I really do thing this woulld be your wisest course of action.

Chris hit the nail on the head here I think.

There is a reason many species of parrots never became big in the pet trade, some of whom proved extremely difficult to breed/raise in captivity. I am not hugely familiar with the black cockatoos beyond they never became 'popular' for a reason and it wasn't because they don't look super cool. Unfortunately, even if you are experienced in hand feeding etc... this baby may just not be thriving because of reasons not immediately apparent specific to it's species. Due to it's rarity in the pet trade, a regular avian vet may not be aware of what potential unique issues these cockatoos may have or special needs they may require. Contacting a zoo or sanctuary or even your local wildlife agency (given they are native to where you live) may provide more answers since they'd be more likely to have dealt with these birds than a vet who deals with 'common' parrots to the pet trade day in day out. If the bird is of the age it's nibbling pellets, have you tried it on softer foods, like oatmeal, mashed bananas, baby food etc....? Perhaps that would help get more nutrition in it since it's old enough to try solids and may be more appetizing than pellets and closer in consistency to formula to encourage the bird to try eating more on it's own while you still attempt to formula feed?

Did you use an "off the shelve" formula?
Because if this is an ongoing problem with the species I think it just might be lacking in certain necessery nutritional aspects.
(no birds are created/ evolved exactly alike)

Since they only breed in the wild when there is an abundance of one or two certain nuts it think someone should take a look at the chemical composition of said nuts.
(And since they are still being poached anyway- why hasn't anyone taken a cropsample from a wildfed one and played "spot the differences"?)

They fledge about 10-12 weeks (afaik), but get fed for ages after that by the parrent-birds, so it can't be abundance-weaning unless the litte one is desperate to compensate for malnourishment...

she is at the proper weight range the vet said nearly 1 kg

ChristaNL said:

Did you use an "off the shelve" formula?
Because if this is an ongoing problem with the species I think it just might be lacking in certain necessery nutritional aspects.
(no birds are created/ evolved exactly alike)

Since they only breed in the wild when there is an abundance of one or two certain nuts it think someone should take a look at the chemical composition of said nuts.
(And since they are still being poached anyway- why hasn't anyone taken a cropsample from a wildfed one and played "spot the differences"?)

They fledge about 10-12 weeks (afaik), but get fed for ages after that by the parrent-birds, so it can't be abundance-weaning unless the litte one is desperate to compensate for malnourishment...

Click to expand...

Years ago I was part of conservation with this species. For a decade the four pairs of Black Palm Cockatoos never laid a single egg. So that is very interesting to hear about the nuts ... I hope you are able to find help

So you did not allow the parents to raise this chick for the first week or two, but rather you have been attempting to feed it from the day it hatched? What implement did you use at first to try to feed him (syringe, spoon, etc.)? How long did you wait after the chick first hatched to give him his first formula feeding? And what formula have you been using from the start?

Whenever a parrot chick has absolutely no feeding-response at all, it typically has to do with either a neurological issue (#! reason), or it has to do with certain chicks not being fed by their mother/father for the first two to three weeks before being pulled. It's extremely common for this to happen whenever a human attempts to hand-feed a chick from the moment of hatching. It can also be caused by a human trying to feed the chick too soon after hatching. Most species of parrots (not all, but most) wait at least 24 hours before feeding their newly-hatched babies for the first time, and if we as people don't wait and try to immediately feed them, or feed them too soon after hatching, then this can be the result. Also, it's ill-advised to start feeding a chick until they are at least 2 weeks old, but no older than 3 weeks old, as parrots do in-fact provide their newly-hatched chicks with a form of "crop-milk", which provides the baby chicks necessary antibodies and antigens to build their immune systems. Think of the mother's first feedings as a type of "colostrum"...So when a person starts feeding a chick from the start, they are automatically depriving the chick of this very important and much needed immunity-builder, and for these reasons it's best to ALWAYS wait until the chick is at least 2 weeks old, unless there is no choice, like the chick has been refused by the mother, the mother dies, etc.

It's more than likely that your chick is suffering from a neurological/developmental issue, as is usually the case with a chick that has never had any feeding response...And tube-feeding a chick, though sometimes necessary, usually also causes a whole lot of issues, both physical/health related as well as psychological...Chicks that are tube-fed never learn what "taste" is, as they never get to taste their food, so therefore they never form the mental connection between food and enjoyment, and often times they just fail to ever eat, and often suffer from malnutrition, undernutrition, nutritional deficiencies, etc. Often these birds have to be tube-fed for the rest of their lives, because they don't realize that they are hungry, nor do they realize that they need to eat to survive, as they lack this particular drive of survival...The longer they are tube-fed, the more likely they are to never understand what being "hungry" is, or how to make the feeling go away. They don't like to eat, they think of it as forever a negative experience, and basically their owners must force-feed them formula by tube-feeding them every single day for the rest of their lives...

parents don't sit on eggs they lay them on the ground or from the tree . incubated from lay .