Good afternoon guys, I registered to this forum because I don't know what else to do to completely wean my cockatiel.
So, a little bit of backstory. My grandmother used to have a cockatiel, and when she got too old and forgetful to properly take care of it, I took her in and completely fell in love with her. It was already a big girl when she came home, and she lived 5 more years with me, until she passed away almost two years ago. I then realized I had grown to love birds, especiallyh cockatiels, so last year I began to search for breeders in my area. Now, I live in a country where cockatiel breeding is pretty basic, and there isn't a lot of knowledge about it, let alone about raising them as pets. I was directed to a man who came highly recommended, and I bought my current boy in April.
The tiel had an 8 hours bus trip to get to my city, and when I finally got to pick him up, I found out that it was an unweaned chick - not what the breeder had promised. I was given pictures, yes, but it was full feathered and it looked weaned... but it wasn't, at all.
To make matters worse, he was scared and wanted nothing to do with me. It took me 4 days to properly handfeed him - I was doing two daily 1 hours trip to an avian vet to have him feed the chick. (The bredeer was obviously MIA and even now, he hasn't contacted me back)
The little kid got sick, a lung infection that has now thankfully been completely cured, and from what I've been told he did a serious regression. He's now 5 months old, though (I suspect the breeder lied about his age, actually, so he could be anywhere between 4 to 6), and he keeps eating hand-feeding formula. I've managed to drop most of the daily feedings, and he does eat seeds, fruits and vegetables. The night formula is the only one left, but whenever I try to pull it 1cc a day, he begins to lose weight quickly.
It's more than the handfeeding per se, though. He hardly eats anything if I leave him in his cage: it's like he waits for me to come and put a plate of soft food/seeds in front of him, and even then he'll just eat for a little while and then run off to play with something. He doesn't try to whistle or anything either, and just makes baby noises the whole day.
The opinion of the avian vet I take him to is that I should just starve him until he eats, but I read online that it was dangerous for a bird to lose more than 10% of his usual weight. I began to pull back the ccs again 4 days ago, and he went down from 81 to 76 grams.
I understand I'm to blame, for having allowed him to be hand-fed until such a late age, but when he got sick I seriously thought I'd lose him and now every change in his weight or droopings has me worried sick, and I give in to his crying. However, I'm more worried that continuing like this might be harmful to him in the future, so I've come here to ask for help or ideas to help him move on from the formula.
Thank you for taking the time to read this!
So, a little bit of backstory. My grandmother used to have a cockatiel, and when she got too old and forgetful to properly take care of it, I took her in and completely fell in love with her. It was already a big girl when she came home, and she lived 5 more years with me, until she passed away almost two years ago. I then realized I had grown to love birds, especiallyh cockatiels, so last year I began to search for breeders in my area. Now, I live in a country where cockatiel breeding is pretty basic, and there isn't a lot of knowledge about it, let alone about raising them as pets. I was directed to a man who came highly recommended, and I bought my current boy in April.
The tiel had an 8 hours bus trip to get to my city, and when I finally got to pick him up, I found out that it was an unweaned chick - not what the breeder had promised. I was given pictures, yes, but it was full feathered and it looked weaned... but it wasn't, at all.
To make matters worse, he was scared and wanted nothing to do with me. It took me 4 days to properly handfeed him - I was doing two daily 1 hours trip to an avian vet to have him feed the chick. (The bredeer was obviously MIA and even now, he hasn't contacted me back)
The little kid got sick, a lung infection that has now thankfully been completely cured, and from what I've been told he did a serious regression. He's now 5 months old, though (I suspect the breeder lied about his age, actually, so he could be anywhere between 4 to 6), and he keeps eating hand-feeding formula. I've managed to drop most of the daily feedings, and he does eat seeds, fruits and vegetables. The night formula is the only one left, but whenever I try to pull it 1cc a day, he begins to lose weight quickly.
It's more than the handfeeding per se, though. He hardly eats anything if I leave him in his cage: it's like he waits for me to come and put a plate of soft food/seeds in front of him, and even then he'll just eat for a little while and then run off to play with something. He doesn't try to whistle or anything either, and just makes baby noises the whole day.
The opinion of the avian vet I take him to is that I should just starve him until he eats, but I read online that it was dangerous for a bird to lose more than 10% of his usual weight. I began to pull back the ccs again 4 days ago, and he went down from 81 to 76 grams.
I understand I'm to blame, for having allowed him to be hand-fed until such a late age, but when he got sick I seriously thought I'd lose him and now every change in his weight or droopings has me worried sick, and I give in to his crying. However, I'm more worried that continuing like this might be harmful to him in the future, so I've come here to ask for help or ideas to help him move on from the formula.
Thank you for taking the time to read this!
Last edited: