New Baby Advice and Tips please!

Hello everyone,

I am new here and am hoping you can all help me out. I adopted a 9 week male New Guinea eclectus today. I'm so excited to have him and want to give him only the best. This is where all your advice and tips come in handy.

The breeder I got it from has given Shrekky the following routine:
Morning- formula feed
During day- fresh fruit and millet
Night- formula feed

I have read mixed things in regards to millet should I continue giving it to him? Also what helpful tips do you have to offer? Anything from feeding, routine, behaviour? Thanks in advance looking forward to the replies

Welcome to the forums, hope you enjoy your stay...for most birds, millet is like candy, where a bird will fill up on millet (if it can) and leave other foods.....all of my guys like millet, but they only get a half spray at a time about every other week.....

Here are some eclectus dietary links...keep in mind that ekkies need a diet a little different than most other parrots.....


diets

Eclectus Parrots For Sale Eclectus Parrot Breeder Eclectus Babies

Dietary Information for Eclectus Parrots From a Respected Specialist Breeder

Eclectus Parrot Diet - Graham Taylor (Australia)

http://www.parrotforums.com/eclectus/44603-diet.html

http://www.parrotforums.com/eclectus/28350-eclectus-diet-confused.html

http://www.parrotforums.com/eclectus/38464-eclectus-diet-ok.html

Hello and welcome! Good luck with Shrek, we'd love to see photos.

Nooblet said:

Hello everyone,

I am new here and am hoping you can all help me out. I adopted a 9 week male New Guinea eclectus today. I'm so excited to have him and want to give him only the best. This is where all your advice and tips come in handy.

The breeder I got it from has given Shrekky the following routine:
Morning- formula feed
During day- fresh fruit and millet
Night- formula feed

I have read mixed things in regards to millet should I continue giving it to him? Also what helpful tips do you have to offer? Anything from feeding, routine, behaviour? Thanks in advance looking forward to the replies

Click to expand...

Welcome to Parrot Forums!

If I'm reading you correctly, here, are you saying that the breeder sent you home with a 9 week old, unweaned eclectus? And if so, do you have any hand-feeding experience? I ask because there are many things that can go wrong while hand-feeding a bird. Burned, infected, or impacted crops come to mind. And these things can be fatal. So, if you are inexperienced, you might want to either ask the breeder to fully wean your eclectus first, or do the feedings under the supervision of someone very experienced in hand-feeding and weaning.

As for feeding advice, I would try and get your ekky used to a large variety of veggies and legumes as well as fruits. Take it slowly, though, as he's young yet.

I'd also say that now would be a good time to start training him. Especially harness training, since they tend to be more accepting of it when they're younger.

Give him lots of love and attention, but not significantly more than you'll be able to do on a regular basis. Otherwise, he could feel abandoned and develop behavioral issues.

If you have any other questions, please don't hesitate to ask. Good luck with your new family member and we look forward to seeing pics of the little guy.

Thanks so much everyone. I'll check out those links. So it's best to really limit the millet I'm assuming. I'll post up pics later as soon as I get a chance.

Anansi

Hi,

I have formula fed baby ekkys before and successfully weaned them onto solids. But because it's been such a long time I just wanted to make sure I do everything right. First feed at home went pretty smoothly and he enjoyed his feed. I will be cutting up a variety of fruit and veg during the day for him to eat. When should seeds be introduced? Thanks for your advice it's been helpful.

Oh, good! Whew! I feel much better, then. Lol!

I'd wait a bit on seeds. I'm not one of those who demonizes them, but they really should only make up around 10% of an ekky's diet at most. And since some parrots go absolutely insane for seeds, I'd personally get his routine with other, more nutritious foods established first. Seeds can always be introduced later, IMO.

And you're welcome! I'm glad it helped.