getting a baby max pi tomorrow any advice

hi everyone,

So after much searching my father in law was able to find me a baby maximillian. were going to go pick him/her up tomorrow morning. my father in law used to sell and breed birds and has some connections at a bird farm so he was able to get me quite a deal on a baby. hes going to be taking care of the bird until its fully weaned. in the meantime i want to get all his stuff ready for when he/she is ready to come home. therefore i have a few questions. whats the ideal size cage for this kind of bird. what kind of toys should i get? whats the ideal type of food i should feed it? and what should i do to make the bird feel as comfortable as possible in his new home. im really excited but also quite nervous since ive never really owned a bird before. my in law was telling me that its always best to get a bird when they are babies because it helps you bond more. anyways any advice would be greatly appreciated. thank you. ill post a pic as soon as i get baby maxi.

Wait, you got a bird from a bird farm! Am I understanding you correctly, did you really get a pet bird from a bird mill?

I just googled your baby and it seems that they are great pets!! congrats!
Get the biggest cage that you can afford and lots of toys! Tell your father in law to wean your baby into a pelleted diet and make sure to introduce him to fruits and vegetables as early as possible.. that way he can have a very healthy diet

yes, my advice is to give your new baby to me. I am looking for either a maximillion or bronzewing pionus and am having trouble finding any. so just get ahold of me and I will give you my address.......lol. seriously though you picked an amazing parrot. I'm jealous.

Just wanted to let you guys know I'm actually on my way right now to pick up our new bird. Oh and yes we are getting our bird from a bird farm. They normally don't sell their birds until they are fully weaned but since my in law knows the owner and is experienced hand feeding birds, they are selling it to us about 3 weeks old. I'll post up a pic of out little friend as soon as I get him.

God61021- well as for the bronze I believe they are a little harder to find. The place where I'm going to only breeds blue headed pionus and maximillians.

well I can find one in florida all I have to do is fly there from northern illinois to pick it up. lol usually when I tell someone Im looking for a bronzewing I hear "yeah....good luck with that"

i got our little guy already. He's a lot smaller than i anticipated. You can only see the tips of some feather barely coming out. Unfortunately I can't seem to figure out how to post pics from my phone so ill post them as soon as I get home today. I took some pics of other birds they had as well if you want I'll post them as well. I can honestly say the place was incredible. I thought it was going to be an actual farm but it turned out to be more like a huge petstore. My in law told me that they breed the birds at another location and once the birds are fully weaned the sell them to the public. They not only had a huge variety of birds but bird accessories as well. I was going to go all out today on the cage, toys, and food but since next week there's going to be this annual birdmart convention my in law told me to wait and I might be able to find things cheaper there. In the meantime he has everything the bird will need so that he can wean it. Oh ans my in law purchased a female cockatiel so he can breed her. Anyways like I said I'll post picks later on this afternoon.

god61021 said:

well I can find one in florida all I have to do is fly there from northern illinois to pick it up. lol usually when I tell someone Im looking for a bronzewing I hear "yeah....good luck with that"

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I just put a deposit down on a Maximillian pi, so I know of a breeder who has babies right now. They do ship, so if this is an option for you, you might want to look into it. You can PM me if you want more info on the breeder.

Please read: Hazards of buying an unweaned baby!

thanks for the info spiritbird. i ask my in law and he said that the place where i got my pionus doesnt sell unweaned birds to just anyone. not even breeders in most cases. they usually only sell weaned birds. the reason they make an exception for my in law is because hes know the owner for quite some time and has raised numerous babies from their farm. i guess the owner has a lot of trust in his capabilities. my in law has even been able to raise baby birds that those at the farm didnt think will make it. that is why i am comfortable leaving my baby max with him until he is fully weaned. also since he doesnt live too far from me ill be able to visit max almost every other day until the day i take him home. anyways as promised heres my first pic of him.

oh and i almost forgot to mention i also saw a 7yr old maximillion pionus they had for sale. i forgot to ask wether it was a boy or girl but it was very tame since i was able to pet it.

okay so today i went to visit my in law and to see how our baby is doing. heres a new pic of our baby. his feathers are starting to come out.

He is adorable! I still don't think you should have bought an unweaned baby but seeing as what's done is done, congrats!

thanks cdog! i didnt realize all the dangers of buying an unweaned baby but thankfully my in law has taken good care of him. i went to visit him again today and our baby max has grown up so much. he has a lot more feathers than before and i noticed a bit of red on his head. my in law said its normal with this species. apparently sometimes when the are babies they get a little bit of red on their head, but itll be gone after a couple of months. now my question is why? why do they get red only when they arre babies? oh and heres an updated pic.

so i went to a bird show this weekend and i was amazed at all the stuff they had. although i was pleased with the accesories i did feel kinda sad for the live animals they had. i read a post earlier on here about why bird marts are bad. but i guess i just had to see it to believe it. although their were some venders that had beautiful happy birds, the majority had very sad looking and dull colored birds. i guess to the untrained eye the birds would look normal but i noticed more because i compared some of the species my in law had to the ones some vendors were selling. for example my in law's most recent bird is an alexandrian parakeet. he got it since he was about 3 weeks old and hes about 4 months now. well i noticed that his alexandrian had a very bright and vibrant green coloring with some blue on his tail feathers and a bright beak. now the ones we saw at the show what very dull green and a slightly darker beak. my in law was telling me its because some of the venders dont properly take care of their birds. they dont feed them a healthy diet and dont keep their birds in sanitized enviroments. i could tell that seeing some of these birds really got him a bit agitated with the vendors. especially when he saw a lady with a bunch of conures ringnecks, cocktiels and alexandrians in the same terranium container. he was telling me that you shouldnt have different species together especially because these birds were young because sometimes different species might carry diseases that another species might not me imune to. i noticed that since hes raising my maximillian he has our baby completly seperated from any of his other birds especially his alexandrian so that our max wont catch any diseases because hes really vulnerable when hes young. we also saw a macaw in a cage that looked like it was more suited but a medium to small sized bird. it looked like if he could stretch if he wanted to and his tail didnt really fit in the cage. although seeing the birds that some vendors had really brought me down, there were a few vendors that had beautifull animals that looked a lot more alive and happy. these vendors would usually spend a considerate time with the customer explaining how to take care of these birds and what to feed them. i was also very pleased with all the cages, toys, stands, and food they had to choose from. i ended up buying a mazanita play stand that had a swing ladder and food containers. i got a cage as well but i made sure i got it in a box just to avoid and diseases on the cage. i bought a few extra toys and 2 extra baby formula cans. my wife went straight for the peacock feather which a lady was selling 5 for a dollar. anyways i guess going to the bird mart for accesories isnt too bad, but ill definetly recomend that you dont buy and live animals there.