1st time mama to a 8 week old green cheek conure pinapple named coco

Good evening! I am a new member. Thank you for this group!

I am a new mama as of today to a pinapple colored green cheek conure who is 8 weeks old.

Coco is a beautiful bird and we bought it from a breeder. He owns 30 birds but it was a 1st time breeder of this breed. His dad was a wild and mom was from a breeder.

We just bought him tonight. Well we dont know exactly that it's a him lol. But he is a beautiful.

I have never owned a parrot. We do have 2 cats and a puppy. 3 boys who are 11 8 and 5 months. Yes I know very busy hours and life. We bought a cage, food, the cage came with toys. I just gave him a small thin slice of apple which I hand fed.

The bird has its legs spread out a lot almost like splits?
It is definitely a bitter and I'm assuming it wasn't held much and is just scared. I do know there birds can be some of the most loving and affectionate birds.

But it is very young. Can I have tips or advice?

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I'm worried your little one is having a condition called splay legs. This would mean your bird is disabled and the breeder should have told you about this issue. Please take to a vet for a "well baby" check up ASAP. Also, 8 weeks is a tad young to take home so please make sure your baby is eating enough solids foods and not loosing weight. Weigh your bird once a day and record him or her weight. Please please please be careful with your cats and new (possibly disabled) bird...it is easy for cat to kill or mame a bird through the cage bars. I'm really worried about your Coco so please post updates.

I looked up what you said and I think your right! We are hoping to get to a vet tomorrow. They are all closed today.
Thankfully coco is eating apples and its seedmix. We lowered all of its dishes and it is able to fly because it flew out of the cage. We thankfully have a decent size house and put the cats and dog in a different room. We also put the cage in a room where the bird will get lots of attention and we see it most often .. o the living room.
I've been ready a lot on the splayed legs this morning.
Seems like it may not be to late to try to fix it or help some but time is limiting daily.
Thank for all of the advice.

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Ohhh good! Yeah get the little one to a vet and you'll probably be able to help the splay leg be somewhat reversed. I'm so happy it sounds like you're doing a the right things! One more small peice of advice is that when this whole splay legs thing is checked out and you've seen a vet, switch the birdie to a pellet diet like Zupreem Fruit Blend or Natural Blend or Harrison's brand. Use seed as treats only.If your little baby eat too much seeds they can become ill more often and can get a fatty liver disease and die earlier than normal. It can be hard for them to switch and can take time, needs to be introduce slowly and you just phase out the seeds. The earliest the best because it's easier if the bird is young! Good luck and update about the vet's visit with Coco.

Sunnyclover said:

Ohhh good! Yeah get the little one to a vet and you'll probably be able to help the splay leg be somewhat reversed. I'm so happy it sounds like you're doing a the right things! One more small peice of advice is that when this whole splay legs thing is checked out and you've seen a vet, switch the birdie to a pellet diet like Zupreem Fruit Blend or Natural Blend or Harrison's brand. Use seed as treats only.If your little baby eat too much seeds they can become ill more often and can get a fatty liver disease and die earlier than normal. It can be hard for them to switch and can take time, needs to be introduce slowly and you just phase out the seeds. The earliest the best because it's easier if the bird is young! Good luck and update about the vet's visit with Coco.

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This?

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Or this?

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This is what we gave coco yesterday and today

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I feed the zupreem fluit blend

Yes those 2 you linked are ones I'm taking about. Ditch that Kaytee seed blend ASAP. It has way way too many sunflower seeds and not enough nutrition.

A lot of parrots take right away to the fruit blend Zupreem. There’s a lot of controversy over which pallet is best, truth is it’s the one they eat that is the best!

oh no! Splayed legs are from bad nesting habits I think? That breeder needs to know about the slayed legs so they can fix the issue with their birdie parents for future babies.

Can I ask what you paid for him? Should have been heavily discounted and I am concerned they are not reputable breeders if they gave him to you without saying anything. If they owned that many birds there no chance they didn't notice it.

As far as the food, need to switch to pellets. I like to mix the fruity pellets with the natural colored pellets, I mix in about 10% of that seed mix you shown in the bottle. I take ALL the sunflower seeds out (its a pain in the butt) and I give them the sunflower seeds as treats. I hope coco is eating solids really well, he seems way too young to be weaned properly. you MUST get a gram scale and weigh him daily! Any weight loss will need to be addressed quickly. If he is eating everything you give him, that's great and I think you should start with like 50% seeds and 50% pellets cause I would be worried about him getting the calories he needs then taper it off every week to 40% seeds, 30% seeds, then finally to a good 10% mixture with the pellets. That's what I would do if just to make sure he's gonna take to solids as young as he is.

Good luck, please keep us updated! I love pineapples, they are just so adorable, I have one of my own!

I just hope we can still fix coco legs.
I'm reading different things about age and being able to fix it.

I paid $200 for the little birdie. And we are already so in love. He is still biting but we are trying to give him space then hold him for a little bit. We are hand feeding thin.. very thin pieces of apple during hand feeding. Since we moved his dishes down he is in his dish all the time eating. And I went over there a little while ago and he was a little wet so I'm assuming he played in the water while I wasn't looking.
I'm reading how to do a home made splint until we can get him in tomorrow.
I will definitely do what you both suggested with the food!
I am reading I'm very fortunate coco is feeding as well as it is.
Look at how far he made it up earlier, he is determined to be active.

YUMgrinder said:

oh no! Splayed legs are from bad nesting habits I think? That breeder needs to know about the played legs so they can fix the issue with their birdie parents for future babies.

Can I ask what you paid for him? Should have been heavily discounted and I am concerned they are not reputable breeders if they gave him to you without saying anything. If they owned that many birds there no chance they didn't notice it.

As far as the food, need to switch to pellets. I like to mix the fruity pellets with the natural colored pellets, I mix in about 10% of that seed mix you shown in the bottle. I take ALL the sunflower seeds out (its a pain in the butt) and I give them the sunflower seeds as treats. I hope coco is eating solids really well, he seems way too young to be weaned properly. you MUST get a gram scale and weigh him daily! Any weight loss will need to be addressed quickly. If he is eating everything you give him, that's great and I think you should start with like 50% seeds and 50% pellets cause I would be worried about him getting the calories he needs then taper it off every week to 40% seeds, 30% seeds, then finally to a good 10% mixture with the pellets. That's what I would do if just to make sure he's gonna take to solids as young as he is.

Good luck, please keep us updated! I love pineapples, they are just so adorable, I have one of my own!

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When you say "hand feed" it's a tad confusing because that's a term for feeding a bird baby formula with a syringe. So what you're found is just giving him peices of apple when he's with you correct? If so...you can mix lots of fruits and vegetables together and feed it to him daily along with pellets! No avacados or onions though. Good luck at the vet tomorrow.

Sunnyclover said:

When you say "hand feed" it's a tad confusing because that's a term for feeding a bird baby formula with a syringe. So what you're found is just giving him peices of apple when he's with you correct? If so...you can mix lots of fruits and vegetables together and feed it to him daily along with pellets! No avacados or onions though. Good luck at the vet tomorrow.

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Sorry,
Yes you are correct I just feed him the apples in my hand.
And he is eating the other food on his own in the cage.


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I am still a complete noob to parrots but isnt 8 weeks old awefully young to be weened. Odin was almost 12 weeks when i got him and still hand fed another 2 weeks after that.
Coco is absolutely adorable though!!!

Be careful getting the splint on. Since he’s older now the legs will take a little longer to move back into a closer position. You don’t want to put too much pressure right away and tear up their legs. An avian vet will definitely be able to help you out

Also, since this breeder doesn’t sound like the best in the world I would definitely get disease testing done on him. Avianbiotech.com has a cheap package compared to what most vets charge you to get the common tests done. The avian combination test of Sexing, PBFD, Chlamydia, and Pacheco’s is $55 plus shipping. When you order the free kit you need to get the blood card and the swabs. You’ll clip a nail for some blood and put it on the card for DNA Sexing. The swab can just be stuck in a pile of poop to test for the others.

Your cage setup needs a little work. Those perches are killer on their feet. Get some textured wood perches of various sizes. The cement grooming perch you have is fine. You can try rope but conures tend to chew up rope perches and they have to be removed. You might need to get him some flat ledge perches depending on how his leg treatment goes. It doesn’t look that bad so the flat perch option probably isn’t needed. We have a much worse splayed budgie that just flys around his cage to get from place to place and he perches just fine.

I would ditch the tent and make something a little safer like folding a sea grass mat or cardboard tunnel. I think there was a thread on safe alternatives before if you use the search button. Birds tend to hang themselves on the tents when they get strings loose or they swallow the fibers needing surgery to remove globs of fabric.

He is on the young side but he could have weaned on the early end. Just watch out for the baby head bobbing and crying. Don’t grab his beak and I would avoid warm mushy foods for now to try and avoid him regressing if he is eating solids consistently.

That's an extremely bad case of splayed legs, one of the worst I've ever seen...There is NO WAY you should have paid $200 for a Green Cheek Conure who was obviously not at all hand-raised and has a permanent disibility...You need to call that breeder and ask them what gives, as splayed legs is a result of the bird not being on flat ground, and of not perching...So my guess here is that this breeder #1) Doesn't hand feed at all or interact with their babies, and just lets them/forces them to stay in an uneven nest box, or probably, unfortunately, a cardboard box, and #2) Did not put him in any kind of weaning cage, meaning he never learned to properly perch either, which is why he's simply sitting on the bottom of the cage, poor little guy...

It seems he is weaned at 8 weeks if he is eating seeds, fruits, etc., but yes, he should be on diet of pellets with a fortified seed mix supplementing it, and then lots of daily fresh veggies and fruit. But at least the bird isn't still on formula, though this is not at all due to a good breeder, but only happened by accident or chance because the breeder doesn't hand-raise and allows the parent birds to both feed and raise the birds completely, and PARENT-RAISED BABIES WEAN MORE QUICKLY THAN HAND-RAISED BABIES, AS THE PARENTS STOP FEEDING SOONER THAN WE HUMANS DO...

However, the problem is that this breeder did not provide a proper living environment for the babies as they hatched and grew, and this is why the splayed legs happened...

I'm sorry, but at 8 weeks old it's highly unlikely that leg splints will help much, maybe a little bit, but at 8 weeks his leg bones have almost fully developed. To fix splayed leg, you have to catch it between 4-6 weeks or earlier, get the splints on, etc. AND IT'S ALSO HIGHLY LIKELY THAT SINCE THIS BREEDER IS NOT A GOOD ONE AT ALL, AND BECAUSE HE IS ALREADY SEEMINGLY FULLY WEANED, THAT HE IS ALSO OLDER THAN 8 WEEKS OLD!

That would be my best guess, as a former Green Cheek Conure breeder for years, that this breeder not only charged you $200 for a non-tame, parent-raised baby that was not raised in a proper environment and who has a permanent disability, but that this breeder also lied to you about the bird's age, and he or she, most likely a female, is probably closer to 12 weeks old. That's my guess based on all of the details given, the degree of the splayed legs, the fact that he is fully weaned, that he's already aggressive and biting, and based on his appearance, I'm guessing around 12 weeks old...

Just to explain to you why I'm raving mad right now, not at you of course, at the unscrupulous breeder who has no business breeding birds at all and who did this to this poor, sweet little Green Cheek, it's because you can buy a sweet, loving, fully hand-tame Pineapple or Cinnamon Green Cheek Conure that was hand-raised by a responsible breeder from 2 weeks old, and who does not have a permanent physical disability for $200!!! That's why I'm upset for both you and the poor baby...

You should definitely talk to a Certified Avian Vet only and try a leg splint or whatever they suggest (make sure it's only a Certified Avian Vet who has experience with splay legs and with Green Cheeks, because an Exotic's or General Vet isn't going to be able to help you much or be able to give you much information about your bird at all), but it's likely that this baby is already too old to reverse the splayed legs much...I hope that I'm wrong...

And I would be calling that breeder ASAP and asking them why in the world they thought it was okay to sell you a baby Green Cheek with a permanent, physical disability...I hope to God they didn't also lie to you and tell you that this baby was hand-raised or tame. And I certainly hope that the rest of their babies aren't also suffering from the splayed legs, but chances are that if they are not providing the babies a proper nest box or weaning cage at the appropriate times that all of their babies have this issue...

I agree with Ellen about it being too old for the splints to do much but no reason not to try it with an avian vets supervision. It’s one of the reasons we never bothered with trying it on our budgie. Honestly our budgie is worse than this guy and he gets around fine and doesn’t need anything different than a normal bird to get around. But we have a decent sized cage setup in a way that allows flying, so maybe think about a larger cage and encourage flight.

At the shelter there is also a cockatoo with completely crushed legs. Where they are folded up and she gets around fine. Beats up other birds, bites people when they annoy her, and climbs around her cage. She does need completely flat ledge perches which is the only difference.

Yes,as far as the food goes,wean him off the seed. My BB loves those Nupreem fruity pellets that you showed,but I still give him 1/4 cup of special blend cockatiel seed I get from his breeder.
He and Amy eat "birdy muffin's" I bake when needed,he is starting to eat regular veggies and some fruit,but I find that baking the nuffins,he doesn't have a chance on ignoring the good things coz they are already nixed in.
If your little Coco is eating from your hand,thats a good time to introduce him to new things..a piece of broccoli,corn nibs,peas etc..and make a fuss about it! Make "MMMmmmm yummy Coco" sounds to encourage him to try things.
I agree he is a little young,and with you being a new Mama and all,you can use advice,thats why WE are here!
Plenty of people here who have conures and know a great deal about them.
"SunnyClover" (Desi) and "GaleriaGila" (Ms Gail) are just two parronts who come right to mind who are very well informed about Conures.
Don't feel awkward if you want to ask a question and think its dumb!! The only "dumb" question is the one not asked!!
We are all here to help guide you so that coco lives a long life and puts many on your face!
Thank you for joining our family,you won't regret it.
Please keep us updated on Coco's leg,I think he is young enough,that with the proper treatment form a Certified Avian Vet (CAV) I think there is a very good chance that he will be 100% soon!


Jim

Well we found 3 avian vets who are board certified by us. Thankfully. So hopefully if 1 cant get us in we have 2 others.
The slum bag said mama was still with baby.
Hopefully the baby can get tamed and hopefully tomorrow we can get in and find out an estimate on age and figure out about the leg.
I am so thankful I found this group. You all are life saviors.
They had beautiful gentle birds at my local family pet store that they are very loving and it's a mom and pops that its family owned and handles each animal as their own pet.
But we thought buying from a "breeder" would have been better but we got scammed.
I cried and my heart is in my stomach.
I keep trying to tell myself even though we got hustled maybe if we didnt get coco maybe wouldn't have lived, maybe he would have been so neglected he would have died. And we really did rescue this baby.

We do plan on buying bigger wood pieces, everything that is in the cage came with it at a pet store.
I have no idea what he gave coco before we got him yesterday but he didnt say anything about formula just the baby was still in the cage with mama.

We know we have a lot of improvements that need to be made, especially now that our baby coco will need extra loving.
I definitely would never hit or hurt the baby for biting especially. Just figuring out how to help this baby and bond with it

My heart is just in pieces

I just hope we can help coco live a long life
[emoji24][emoji173][emoji174]

I promise I wasn't trying to be an uneducated buyer.

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