Baby parrot eating solids at breeders house but not mine?

[Joeyd]

So I bought an 8 week old parrotlet. Totally weaned and eating solid foods at the breeders house. When I brought it back home it didn’t eat at all for 2 days. The bird didn’t seem stressed out or nervous at all. It would call out for me and always want to be around me making it’s grinding beak noises.

Due to it not eating and dropping 3+ grams in those few days I had to immediately bring the bird back to the breeder. Later on that day the breeder stated that the bird was doing better and was eating solid foods again at their house.

Does anyone know what might be going on? I absolutely loved this bird and really would like to get him back. Not sure if it just needs a bit more time at the breeders house to just stay on solid foods for a while or if there may be another problem.

Not sure if it also makes a difference but this clutch (only 2 birds) were fed by the parents instead of the breeder. So I have no idea if this makes the process to go to a new placer longer/harder on the bird?

 

[chris-md]

Likely it was just a temporary regression in weaning. It happens when young birds are thrust into a new environment. They fall back to wanting handfeedings out of stress. It’s a baby comfort/security blanket thing.

It’s typically handled by continuing to offer hand feedings as the bird desires. Let the bird reject the feedings and wean itself back on to hard food.

Nothing overly concerning. You’d likely be fine taking this bird back. Have the breeder show you how to offer some handfeedings in case it regresses again; this is actually something you can do yourself and is important to be able to have on hand immediately if the bird begs for it. This is the practice of abundance weaning. These comfort feedings are critical in the psychological development of your bird.

It will eventually pass, dont worry! It’s just a baby bird being a baby Bird. Nothing more.

 

[Joeyd]

Ok. So I’m assuming maybe another 2-4 weeks at the breeders should do the trick?

Problem was that the baby got to 17 grams at my house. He went from super energetic the day I got him to not having enough energy to even climb on my hand.

 

[chris-md]

Probably not that long. Like I said, these regressed handfeedings are actually something you could do if you have interest in learning. If you are willing to learn and your breeder willing to teach, you could probably take te bird back right now.

Given the birds history here, it’s likely you’ll need to learn it anyways, since it’s possible this could be triggered again when it returns. I’d suggest you be ready for that eventuality, and learn to help the bird work through this stress. It would be good for you both, actually!

 

[Joeyd]

By hand feeding are you talking about me weaning the bird? I’ve actually done that before but this was the first time I ever screwed up. Do to it’s huge weight loss I think I was too worried and overfed it. It was aspirating pretty bad after my feeding before I brought him back to the breeder.

I know some birds can get screwed up from that due to infections I think so I hope I haven’t done any type of damage like that.

I wonder if I waited too long to give him the formula. Cause I didn’t give it to him till very late on the 2nd night and then the morning after.