Baby Ringneck Husbandry

[SJD]

My family got a 3 month old Indian Ringneck yesterday and I have a few questions.

1: Yesterday she was a little shy but would step up and seemed not stressed out when we would pick her up. This morning was a whole different story. When I reached into her cage this morning she was not having it. She immediately was trying to get away from me. I did not force her of course. I've just spent most of the day sitting near her cage and talking to her. But is that normal for her to decide she's not ok with us touching her?

2: the person we got her from told us that she was newly weaned, and that she may not be ready for a full sized cage, so we have her in a smaller cage, but I know it's not big enough and I'm wondering if it's true that she shouldn't be in a bigger cage? I'll post a picture of the cage she is in. A new bigger one has been ordered and will be here by Wednesday.

3: We haven't seen her eat or drink yet. She may have gotten water overnight, I'm not sure. But there does not appear to be any disturbance to her food and there's no food on the floor of her cage.

4: Pellet over a seed mix? I had a cockatoo many years ago and I did not know pellets were even a thing until doing some research online recently. Is there a brand that's best?

Thank you so much for any assistance. As I mentioned I had a bird before but it's been many years and I feel under prepared now that I have this new bird. But I want to make sure she is taken care of.

Also, side note. We're not sure if it's a he or she, we haven't done DNA testing yet and the bird is only 3 months old. Could be either gender.

 

[LaManuka85]

My family got a 3 month old Indian Ringneck yesterday and I have a few questions.

1: Yesterday she was a little shy but would step up and seemed not stressed out when we would pick her up. This morning was a whole different story. When I reached into her cage this morning she was not having it. She immediately was trying to get away from me. I did not force her of course. I've just spent most of the day sitting near her cage and talking to her. But is that normal for her to decide she's not ok with us touching her?

2: the person we got her from told us that she was newly weaned, and that she may not be ready for a full sized cage, so we have her in a smaller cage, but I know it's not big enough and I'm wondering if it's true that she shouldn't be in a bigger cage? I'll post a picture of the cage she is in. A new bigger one has been ordered and will be here by Wednesday.

3: We haven't seen her eat or drink yet. She may have gotten water overnight, I'm not sure. But there does not appear to be any disturbance to her food and there's no food on the floor of her cage.

4: Pellet over a seed mix? I had a cockatoo many years ago and I did not know pellets were even a thing until doing some research online recently. Is there a brand that's best?

Thank you so much for any assistance. As I mentioned I had a bird before but it's been many years and I feel under prepared now that I have this new bird. But I want to make sure she is taken care of.

Also, side note. We're not sure if it's a he or she, we haven't done DNA testing yet and the bird is only 3 months old. Could be either gender.

Welcome to the forums, @SJD and your beautiful baby! Does s/he have a name yet?

Personally I've never used a smaller cage for a bird of that age. Others may have a different opinion on this, but I would think baby should be ok in the new cage you have on order when it arrives

As far as food goes, I would just go with whatever s/he was being fed most recently by the person you bought her from - I'm just going with "her" for now There will be plenty of time to convert to pellets later once she's settled in, so for now I'd just feed what she is most familiar with. I feed mine (with the exception of my lorikeet) a 50/50 combo of Harrisons Lifetime Fine pellets and TOPS, which are both organic and IMO are pretty much the best you can get. I found Harrisons to be a good product to use for conversion from a seed diet too because it looks a lot like millet so my 'tlels and my princess parrot took to it quite readily. I feed both brands to my guys in an effort to give them a greater variety of ingredients, but they also get some seeds every day along with their fresh green leafy veg.

Hopefully some others with a bit more IRN experience will weigh in with some advice for you soon. I had one many MANY years ago and he was a delight, as I'm sure your little sweetheart will be too

 

[SJD]

Welcome to the forums, @SJD and your beautiful baby! Does s/he have a name yet?

Personally I've never used a smaller cage for a bird of that age. Others may have a different opinion on this, but I would think baby should be ok in the new cage you have on order when it arrives

As far as food goes, I would just go with whatever s/he was being fed most recently by the person you bought her from - I'm just going with "her" for now There will be plenty of time to convert to pellets later once she's settled in, so for now I'd just feed what she is most familiar with. I feed mine (with the exception of my lorikeet) a 50/50 combo of Harrisons Lifetime Fine pellets and TOPS, which are both organic and IMO are pretty much the best you can get. I found Harrisons to be a good product to use for conversion from a seed diet too because it looks a lot like millet so my 'tlels and my princess parrot took to it quite readily. I feed both brands to my guys in an effort to give them a greater variety of ingredients, but they also get some seeds every day along with their fresh green leafy veg.

Hopefully some others with a bit more IRN experience will weigh in with some advice for you soon. I had one many MANY years ago and he was a delight, as I'm sure your little sweetheart will be too

Welcome to the forums, @SJD and your beautiful baby! Does s/he have a name yet?

Personally I've never used a smaller cage for a bird of that age. Others may have a different opinion on this, but I would think baby should be ok in the new cage you have on order when it arrives

As far as food goes, I would just go with whatever s/he was being fed most recently by the person you bought her from - I'm just going with "her" for now There will be plenty of time to convert to pellets later once she's settled in, so for now I'd just feed what she is most familiar with. I feed mine (with the exception of my lorikeet) a 50/50 combo of Harrisons Lifetime Fine pellets and TOPS, which are both organic and IMO are pretty much the best you can get. I found Harrisons to be a good product to use for conversion from a seed diet too because it looks a lot like millet so my 'tlels and my princess parrot took to it quite readily. I feed both brands to my guys in an effort to give them a greater variety of ingredients, but they also get some seeds every day along with their fresh green leafy veg.

Hopefully some others with a bit more IRN experience will weigh in with some advice for you soon. I had one many MANY years ago and he was a delight, as I'm sure your little sweetheart will be too

Hello! Her name is Lani

Thank you for the info on the pellets. We do have the food she was eating before (a seed mix mostly) we'll work on switching over to pellets once she's a little more settled. I did finally see her at the food dish this afternoon, so that's good news. And we'll get her moved in to her bigger house as soon as it arrives. Thank you again for your advice!