Molting 20mo ekkie wants formula

Figured I'd post on this side, rather than the ekkie one.

Cairo is 20 months old. We don't know much of his medical history before he came to us at 15 months old. I don't know how he was weaned, but I assume he was hand-fed since that's common here. I've always been concerned about how black his beak still was when he came to us as well as how tattered his feathers were - I initially believed from my research that those signs of youth should be mostly gone by 12 months.

For the past month or so, Cairo's been molting (mostly body feathers) for a while now. His appetite goes from a normal 2 meals to 4 meals (I notice it only increases when he has a lot of pin feathers and is actively dropped main feathers, not down feathers). This week, it went up to 5 meals. But what concerns me is this evening.

I came home from work. My partner had already fed Cairo a third meal just shortly before I got home. Cairo made sounds that he was hungry again, so I offered him a fourth meal. He dug into it for a while. Then he came back to me with his hungry call. I brought his half-full food bowl over to him, confused at why he was telling me that he was hungry. He started sounding like a baby ekkie calling for food again. So I kinda panicked and just thought, 'if he's calling out like a baby again, maybe he needs baby food.'

I made him formula (left over from his hospitalisation times), and he immediately went for it. Did the whole head gulping action like babies do. I probably got roughly 20+ ml into him before he started rejecting it. (Yes, I was keeping an eye on the temperature and texture, and I used a 3ml syringe our vet gave us, and I made sure to feed from my right side/his left. No, I don't want to do this if it's not necessary.)

Lately, his droppings are a little less consistent that I would like at times. Some hours they look completely normal - all three parts, no problem. Some hours they are quite watery. Sometimes, they have a brownish-reddish tint to urine. Sometimes, it's normal in colour. Because I always tell myself to wait another meal, I haven't taken him to the vet over it because the concerning poops always go away with another meal eaten.

Main question: Is this a concern to bring him to the vet over? They're open 12pm-5pm and 8pm-11pm, so they've just started the second shift for the day. If y'all think it's worth a trip, I'll take him over now.

Nope not a concern. Just a comfort thing. It’s great bonding time for you all as well.

You already mentioned he was ravenous a lot of the time.. so unless he picked up some internall parasites I asume he looses a LOT or energy building all those gorgeous new feathers...
and maybe 'just chop' is just not nourishing enough for that.

So, if the bird needs- the bird gets
You made sure of that.

We still have no clue what birds do or do not eat in the wild, all through the year, throughout their lives... so just try as best as we can.

If he did pick up some internal parasites, would it show up occasionally in his droppings, or would he consistently have bad droppings? I'm not going to rule our internal parasites because we did recently go to an ekkie meetup; I made sure he didn't share food or sit on anyone's perch but his own (look but don't touch policy), but you never know.

I'm ok with feeding him formula if that's what he needs - just got spooked that he was so desperate for it at this age. But I suppose if this is his big molt, then he's probably looking for something comforting and familiar and full of nutrition. My poor partner can't tell if Cairo's calling for me or calling for food - half the time he gets it wrong and says, "aww, Cairo's calling for you." Nope, am just the mama food source.

The urine should never have color. So I'd be worried about that.

If he picked up parasites from fruit or veggies or wild birds, it normally doesn't effect stool consistency. What it does is make them hungrier because the parasites steal the nutrition...
Has his weight staied good?

You have him on a very restrictive diet as you deal with the taps and wing flaps, it may not be meeting his micronutrients, and vitamin mineral needs?

Molts to take massive amounts of energy, do it can be just that. Mine molted in the fall and ate a lot while still dropping s tiny bit in weight. They seemed to crave nuts during this time, which makes sense. They want protein. Your body need protein to make stuff, building block. So maybe up his protein. If he is useing his own body for proteins, that can result in the kind of dark urine.... The metabolites of body self cannibalism make the urine dark. I would offer some plain boiled chicken, scrambled eggs, and other protein and see if that is what he is really craving. He definitely needs protein to make new feathers.

He's actually on his higher-normal end - 400+g. And no hint of decreasing weight.

Let me try some boiled chicken then. Should it be every day or only once in a while?

I also heard that he might need some more calcium, but I've made sure his chop is fill of calcium-y veggies and egg shells didn't seem to sit well with him (those droppings made me almost haul him to the vet until we waited for his next meal which turned it back to normal). But I also read that calcium/mineral blocks and cuttlefish aren't good for ekkies'. Any recommendations on how to add calcium?

I think I would offer the protein daily while he is molting. You can't store protein. That's why you can loose weight on high protein diets. It's also why body builders need protein supplements , because they are building and protein us a building block. They wouldn't make new muscle mass without the protein.
So I think for sure daily while molting. I offer my non ekkies scrambled eggs every day , but only the amount relative in size to my thumbprint. I offer chicken once a week, and nuts once a week..

Good luck, after thinking and talking with you, I think more protein my just be the answer!

On the calcium front, the veggies are fine, but you need vit D to asorb the calcium. So back to more sunlight, since his diet won't containe vit D . But I think you mentioned before that you take him outside daily, so your covered.

Boiling the chicken tonight!

He asked for formula again this evening, but at least his droppings look normal since I got back from work. He struts around like "I'm a big boy who don't need no formula" after, despite the mess of formula on his beak and chest, haha

Will update how the chicken settles with him.

I wouldn't worry about it UNLESS it continues after he's done molting...It's probably that his body is craving more nutrients than he's getting from veggies/fruits while he's molting, and that is causing him to regress a little bit into his "baby craving/begging" (this is exactly why baby birds do that, because they are growing and developing so rapidly that their bodies are constantly needing more and more nutrition). So if he finishes his molt and he goes back to simply eating his regular diet without begging for formula, then it's normal...If however he finishes this big molt and he just continues to regress and beg like a baby for formula, he may have a parasite or he may have some neurological issues that need to be addressed...I'd also be weighing him every single day at the same time, first thing in the morning after his first poop but before he eats anything, and keeping track of it...If he continues to eat so much but loses weight, then that's a bad sign combined with what is going on...Neurological diseases like PDD come to mind immediately, so that's why you have to be very vigilant about tracking his weight and making sure it stops after the molting stops....

I actually checked his weight this morning after skipping 2 days - he went from 400 to 430 He's growing up! A local breeder thinks he probably came from a Red-sided/Aru mix, so he's a bit bigger than the average Red-sided. His keel bone is still fine, so I guess we're doing ok.

Ha Ha, he's getting to be a big boy!!! How's he doing, everything going okay? I was wondering how Cairo was doing anyway since his sudden and mysterious "illness", it's always a worry when they get so sick and you never really know what caused it...

I weighed Kane yesterday morning (I do it every Tuesday and Friday) and he had suddenly gained 29 grams!!! My CAV had to remind me that the larger the bird, the larger their droppings, and that they can actually lose a good 15-20g in one morning poop!!!

He's doing great again - not actively dropping feathers, so he's not asking for extra food or formula. I anticipate that'll change roughly next week when he'll probably drop some more feathers again. So he's back to eating normal 2-3 meals with his poop looking good again. Went back to 410-ish, but am not too concerned since his normal range is 380-420. He has his set mealtimes but if he ever asks for more food, we always give.

With your suggestion, I just added in brinjal and curry leaves to his chop - he's not too impressed by the brinjal (I don't blame him, since it's not my favourite either), but it adds diversity to his chop and so far no toe-tapping, so we're good

I guess one good thing out of his illness was getting that bag of formula. At least I feel like now I have a few more tools to help him whenever he needs.