Hello from a soon-to-be bird Mom! (& some questions)

Hi!

My significant other and I have a beautiful baby cinnamon whiteface cockatiel coming home to us in about a month. (For simplicity's sake, we've been calling the baby "she" but we know we won't know for sure until first molt). We are first time bird owners so I'm very happy to find a place like this for resources and help.

Most of the stuff the girl at the bird store told us has been corroborated by my research online but I did have a some questions regarding food. The two things she said that I haven't been able to verify are:
1. That hemp seeds are really good for babies since they're soft and they prefer soft things.
2. We should give a lot of millet for the first few months because the fat is essential for healthy growth.

Of course, I think the employee is really experienced but I've been burned by bad advice (from a trusted exotics vet, no less) for my bearded dragon, so I am really cautious now. What are your thoughts on these statements?

Further, there seems to be a lot of debate on the ratios of how much pellets, seeds, vegetables, and grains you should feed. What is the best in your opinion?

We picked her out and put the deposit down on Monday and then went to visit today. She sat calmly in our hands, letting us pet her head, and occasionally lightly nibbled on our fingers. She only made one little peeping noise towards the end as I started to put her back with the other babies. Is there something we can do/should be doing when we visit to make bonding the most productive as possible?

I'm sure I'll come up with more questions in the coming weeks but that's all for now! I've attached pictures of the sweet baby.

Thank you so much for your help!

Whoops, looks like my pics didn't go through the first time. Hopefully it'll work this time.

Welcome to the forum! Naawww he/she is gorgeous. Look at that tiny little tail. As to your questions. The hemp seeds should be perfectly fine.

http://www.parrotforums.com/general-health-care/23061-feeding-hemp-seeds.html

Feeding millet is a great idea for cockatiels and will also make for a great bonding treat/reward. However i would keep it as a treat rather than a staple dietry item as they are a great treat for training. I would also recommend you pick up some pellets, i give my cockatiel vetafarm parrot essentials (Home - Vetafarm) as well as introducing lot's of different vegetables. Cockatiels love boiled rice so that is a good start when getting her to eat fresh foods. Bonding can be made by giving him/her treats and having lot's of positive interactions. With cockatiels i give 5% treats like sunflour and millet, 35% pellets and 60% fresh foods like rice and capsicum. Try to avoid pellets that are dyed like (https://www.zupreem.com/products/birds/fruitblend/) as there is ongoing studies looking into whether the dyes are safe/healthy for our parrots (i'm a crazy eclectus owner and they have particularly special diets so i always watch out for things like that :32. I Look forward to hearing more from you and your new birdie.

Here's a good website that will be helpful.

Parrot Safe Plants - A List Of Safe, Non-Toxic Plants Your Parrot Can Enjoy

http://www.cockatielcottage.net/tablefoods.html

Welcome to you and your beautiful new companion!!

I don't know enough about hemp seeds to evaluate use. Millet is well loved but high in fat and generally used as treat. Some species indeed require more fat but unsure about cockatiels.

Opinions will vary on the proportions of fresh foods, (aka "chop") pellets, and seeds. I personally rank them as listed, though my flock was recently transitioned from seeds to strictly pellets and fresh vegetables/fruits. They receive the latter roughly 5 days per week, and have free access to Harrison's pellets in the absence of chop.

From your description, it appears she "chose" you? That is an excellent technique as opposed to you choosing at random. You'll want her to bond with both of you, so divide the visiting time one-to-one as evenly as possible. There may be some benefit to you passing her back and forth to help establish unity.

Thank you both for your replies!

Looks like we'll get the hemp and the millet but not feed them as often as suggested by the store (so they'll just be treats). I'm glad you mentioned to not get the Zupreem fruit mix, as I've seen it touted elsewhere online and was going to get it.

But oh! I would say I totally chose her at first because of her beauty and am just so grateful she seems to have chosen us right back. When the tote with the babies was brought out, I immediately pointed and said, "Omg that one's beautiful!" We held some older birds after we were told that she wouldn't be weaned for a month, just to see what our options were for a bird we could bring home sooner, but they just didn't act the same. This sweetie pie is well worth the wait!

It seems like we had good instincts with our visit today, then. I held her for a few mins and then the SO held her for even longer, so I got her a little more. Finally, we held her between the two of us on both of our hands like you can kind of see in the second pic. Is she too young for millet now? She still isn't weaned but I would like to bring her a tiny something next time we visit.

Hard to tell, but he/she does look about the age that he/she is being weened onto solid foods. Whether or not she will actually eat the millet is up to her . Regarding the zupreem that is just my stance on it, other members may have different views on dyed pellets. I prefer to use non dyed pellets just to stay safe. Cheers

I been using Roudybush natural pellets for Salty since we brought him home 2-1/2 years ago. He has free access to them all day. Lunch time he gets 2 or more types of fruit and dinner is usually chop mixed with Avicake or 1/2 a hard boiled egg, or some baby food or sweet potato. Your new addition is beautiful, good luck!

Oh, what an exciting time for you! And what a cutie

I have learned an incredible amount by being a member of these forums for the last year +. In that time I have learned a great deal bout nutrition. Here's what I feed my cockatiel...

1.) Dry base of Roudybush pellets, Zupreem pellets and a bit of Kaytee seed mix
2. Sprouts - a mew recent favorite. I highly encourage you to try it, they are basically seeds that are allowed to germinate and sprout, smaller species like cockatiels and budgies rally love this stuff. Here's an article about it if you're interested.
3. CHOP! A mix of assorted veggies, not many fruits as tiels don't usually like a lot of fruit, so I usually have a combination of carrots, peas, green beans, peppers, broccoli, the list goes on..

Do you have a name and a cage picked out yet?

You are getting (and will get) lots of great advice here... we have several members who "specialize" in cockatiel husbandry, and lots who just... know their parrots!

Good for you, for reaching out and being open-minded.

I'm glad you're here.

And yes, indeed, you have a real beauty there!

Welcome! Good luck on the new fid! I second the idea of getting your bird used to eating some pellet. My favorite is Harrison’s. It’s a little more expensive but organic and very well formulated. I order larger bags right from them and keep it in the freezer. That way, they have some dietary insurance in case they develop a picky eating habit. I don’t care much for sprouts myself, because they often become contaminated with pathogens while growing and it’s difficult to clean them, but many people here swear by them.

“Parrots for Dummies” by Nikki Moustaki is one of my favorite general parrot books. It’s very complete. I keep a copy by the reading throne and look at it daily. It covers everything from diet to emergency care to behavior and training.

I used to feed Zupreem Fruit Blend with a small quantity of seed as secondary to chop. They all loved the brand, but over time I decided to transition them to Harrison's. Took 2 to 4 weeks and they love it, no turning back! One of my Goffins developed a sensitivity to the Zupreem dye after literally a decade or more of use. Droppings were reddish in the absence of a medical issue. Experimented by removing the red and orange pellets and returned to normal! No artificial dyes in Harrison's - but none of my other birds had this issue!

I've never heard about Hemp seeds, so I can't say anything for or against that. What I can say is that I've read many books and articles, and heard from 3 different avian vets that pellets (best quality you can afford) should make up the majority of the diet, along with a variety of veggies and occasional fruit. Seeds should be offered as treats while training and should be given in moderation. One vet described seed as being like Chocolate. You wouldn't raise your children on a diet of mainly chocolate no matter how much the child likes it, but there's no harm in occasional treats. Seeds are like that, too much will make the bird fat and malnourished.

Roudybush, Harrison's, Tops, Zupreem natural, and Tropican are all generally considered the best quality. The best reason to avoid anything with dyes and colors is because it will make the bird's poop oddly colored. Keeping an eye on the color and consistency of your bird's poop is an important way to see if there are health problems. If your bird happens to eat too many red pellets and suddenly your bird's poop is red, how can you know if it's the dye or something very bad?

Some people are resistant to feeding their birds veggies because of the perceived effort and expense, but it's really not hard and it's probably the cheapest thing you could feed your bird. A single grown of broccoli is less than a dollar, raw or steamed all you need to do is tear off a bit of broccoli, rip it into peices and toss it in the dish at dinner time and vioala! Your bird is eating healthy veggies! Peas, diced carrots, green beans are all even easier. Sure fresh is better, but a bag of frozen mixed veggies is cheap and easy and better than nothing, right? Personally, I don't like bell peppers (aka capsicum) but my husband loves them. The part we normally throw away (the inner stuff with the seeds) is the part the birds love best!

As far as quantity goes, here's my suggestion (based on research and advice given to me):
Proved pellets in your bird's dish all day long. 2-3 teaspons should more than last a Cockatiel all day long. Replace the pellets right away if the bird poops in there though. At least once a day (dinner time is easiest typically) add some veggies to the pellets. Then at birdy bed time you empty and clean the food dish and provide fresh pellets. This way the veggies aren't left in the dish for more than a few hours, and there's minimal waste. (Veggies left in there all day will rot, stink, attract bugs, etc).

Good luck and Congratulations! Your 'teil sure is beautiful!

I am so encouraged by all of your responses! What an awesome community!

We will definitely be going with natural pellets. I'll just have to do the research now on prices.

Offering chop will be no problem! We already buy produce every week for me, the bearded dragons, and the land hermit crabs. I hope the new baby bird takes after me, not her new dad, and eats her veggies! He's very anti-vegetable lol.

itzjbean said:

Do you have a name and a cage picked out yet?

Click to expand...

I think we're going to name her Skye. I keep saying I want to keep our options open but I just have a feeling that it's going to stick. As far as a cage goes, yes! We ordered a Prevue F040 Flight Cage from Amazon and it'll get here tomorrow.
https://www.amazon.com/Prevue-Products-Wrought-F040-31-Inch/dp/B00176F5L0/

Payday is tomorrow and then we'll be ordering the toys. I read the posts on here about safe/unsafe toys, which was immensely helpful.

Karlys said:

I am so encouraged by all of your responses! What an awesome community!

We will definitely be going with natural pellets. I'll just have to do the research now on prices.

Offering chop will be no problem! We already buy produce every week for me, the bearded dragons, and the land hermit crabs. I hope the new baby bird takes after me, not her new dad, and eats her veggies! He's very anti-vegetable lol.

itzjbean said:

Do you have a name and a cage picked out yet?

Click to expand...

I think we're going to name her Skye. I keep saying I want to keep our options open but I just have a feeling that it's going to stick. As far as a cage goes, yes! We ordered a Prevue F040 Flight Cage from Amazon and it'll get here tomorrow.
https://www.amazon.com/Prevue-Products-Wrought-F040-31-Inch/dp/B00176F5L0/

Payday is tomorrow and then we'll be ordering the toys. I read the posts on here about safe/unsafe toys, which was immensely helpful.

Click to expand...

Great name choice! And that cage....more like a mansion!! I love it! I have see that one before and I know your new one will LOVE IT! Be sure to get an assortment of perches and toys and you're set.

Nice cage!!! What a lucky fid! I'm a big fan pf Prevue cages and playgyms myself.

Roudybush, Harrisons and Tops pellets are all available on Amazon, but it can be pretty expensive if you order the smaller bags of those pellets. Like Kentuckienne, I buy a big 5lb bag of Harrison's and keep it in the freezer. That big bag typically lasts a few months. I have a small tupperware dish I pour some of the pellets in so that I am not opening up the big bag every day, I just open it every couple of weeks to refill my smaller dish. In this way my $35 bag of pellets every three months or so comes to $11 per month for pellets. Not really a big deal if you think about how much a bag of dog or catfood costs, right?

I'm glad to hear the veggies are no problem, you're just like me! I nag my husband into have a serving of veggies with dinner, but I eat a variety of veggies all day long so it's very easy to give Yoda some of whatever veggie I am eating and he gets a good variety every day. Sounds like the same will be true for Skye! (Great name, by the way! works well even if She turns out to be really a He).

You may find in the future that a mobile playgym is really handy if you plan to have Skye out of her cage a lot. Yoda spends his entire day on his playgym or on me or my husband, he basically only sleeps in his cage, or if we are out running errands. Before we got his mobile playgym we had a little table-top playgym which he ate his meals on, and the rest of the day he was on me. The prevue mobile playstand is just nice because I don't have to worry about finding a table to put his gym on, I just roll his playstand around wherever I need to be.

Anyhow, I'm glad you're taking such an active role in learning and providing the best possible life for little Skye. She's very lucky she picked you and your SO!!

Welcome to you and yours!

I'm glad we made the right cage choice! We were both a little worried that such a big cage would be scary for a baby but we decided that she'd be more happy in the long run, even if it meant a little initial discomfort.

We have also decided to go with Harrison's. It has the added benefit of helping us get to the $89.99 required for free shipping at MySafeBirdStore haha.

A playgym is on our list of things we'll get but not right now. We didn't know about Teflon killing birds until after we decided to get one (research oversight) and so we've got the added unanticipated expense of new cookware eating up part of our budget. But, in a month or two, we'll definitely get one.

One thing we noticed when we saw her on Wed was that she's very unsure of her footing. Like, she seems unbalanced, scared that she's going to fall. This makes me worried about how she'll fare when brought to a big cage full of perches. We humored her by letting her be up against our chests but her nails kept getting caught badly in our clothes. When she was passed back to me, I tried holding her away from my body but she was really wobbly and was reaching toward my chest with her head. That's when my SO added his hands to make things more stable and she calmed down. Is this normal? Will she figure it out or should we be helping her somehow?

Karlys said:

One thing we noticed when we saw her on Wed was that she's very unsure of her footing. Like, she seems unbalanced, scared that she's going to fall. This makes me worried about how she'll fare when brought to a big cage full of perches. We humored her by letting her be up against our chests but her nails kept getting caught badly in our clothes. When she was passed back to me, I tried holding her away from my body but she was really wobbly and was reaching toward my chest with her head. That's when my SO added his hands to make things more stable and she calmed down. Is this normal? Will she figure it out or should we be helping her somehow?

Click to expand...

How old is she exactly? There will be some balance issues as a growing baby and they learn to perch between fledging time and weaning. But if you are picking her up and she is still having trouble perching and balancing herself, that is an issue that could be sign of something more serious.

I can't believe I never asked how old she is... We're going back again this afternoon and I'll ask then. I'll also try to see if it's more she's just scared vs unable. I know they go home with someone at night and on Tues/Sat but I wonder if she's not being given the opportunity to perch on anything?

My Yoda was the same way at first. Partly, I think this was because he was raised at a store that keeps their birds in this subdivided plexi-glass walled, open topped bins. Kinda like what you typically see hamsters and ferrets in. This allowed their customers to come and reach their hands down into the bins and pick up or play with the birds. The downside was that the birds didn't have any perches, just some toys and a few rocks to climb on. Also they were running around on dirty corn-cob bedding. Also they were constantly getting freaked out by giant hands from above reaching in to grab them... ok, I'm ranting now. Obviously I wasn't thrilled with the way they house their birds.

In any case, Yoda's wings were clipped at an early, early age and he had only ever experienced running around on corn cob litter. He had a hard time getting used to perches, fingers and shoulders. He seemed very clumsy and unsure of his footing for at least the first month. I'm not sure how much of this was normal baby clumsiness and how much was a result of his housing situation. He grew more confident and sure-footed though. That first month we had to move very very slow when he was on us, or he'd fall off. But now-adays you can't give him off of you without a pry-bar!!

The moral to my story is, your little fid will most likely grow more confident and sure-footed in time. Just feed her well, care for her, be patient and gentle and in time Skye will be just fine.