New Bird Mom Help

Hello!

I am a new bird mom. I just adopted an 8 week old male cockatiel and I adore him already but have many questions the breeder hasn't been much help with.

1. I want to put the flight suit on him and have had it in his cage and been rubbing it on him for three days now, his favorite place to perch is my head and I cant continually wash my hair so I really would like him to start wearing it sooner rather than later.

2. All he will eat is seed and millet spray. He is not interested in treats, fruits and veggies or his pellets, and I know that seed is not a well balanced diet at all. It also seems that it will be hard to train him (I would like to potty train him eventually so we can be rid of the flight suit) without an interest in treats. Any tips or tricks to get him to eat a more well rounded diet?

Any other general advice is appreciated as I want to be a good bird mom! I've named him Gray, after my favorite character on my favorite show, as well as Earl Grey tea because he currently sounds like a little tea kettle.

A good trick to getting them to eat new stuff is feeding them the stuff you want him to eat in the morning, its' when they are most hungry. He may enjoy sprouts, which are seeds allowed to germinate and are much healthier and nutritious then the seeds he's on now.

I use Volkmann's sunflower seed-less seed mix to sprout, it takes a few days but my birds love them. You can serve them right on a paper towel with other chopped fruits and veggies (cockatiels usually aren't super into fruits) I suggest a chopped blend of broccoli, carrots, peas, corn, jalapenos, mixed together along with the sprouts would be a great diet to encourage. Pellets are good too, also serving them when he is most hungry in the morning would be good too. You can serve it separately or with the chop. Otherwise you can mix the seeds he likes with the chop stuff so he has to pick through it to get to his tasty seeds.

Hope that helps!

I've been giving him constant access to food, should I not do that and only feed him at certain times?