Hi everyone.
Im very new here i recently got an african grey a week ago and i was told it was about 7 weeks so he /she should be about 8 weeks .the baby eats relatively good.i was told i had to feed it about 50cc 3 times a day but the baby doesnt want to eat 50cc all at once so i have asked the breeder of its okay to feed the baby at different intervals just as long as it gets its required formula amount and he said it was fine.but now i would like to start introducing fruits and veg.so please tell me how to do that and if i have to wait till the crop is completely empty and what temp should the veg or fruits be .
How much does the baby weigh when it's empty in the morning? That can give you a rough guideline as to how much to feed. Personally, I'd echo John's statement to send the baby back to the breeder and have them finish the job they started.
I've never weaned an african grey so I can only give very basic advice. If you don't know how much it weighs, you need to get a scale. It must be a gram scale, ounces aren't good enough. First thing tomorrow, go get a scale. You might be able to find one at walmart, but postage scales from office supply places are good too. Weigh the baby when its empty every morning. At this age, your baby might be in the weight loss phase. Which often means they don't want much food. You'll have to do some research on your own to see when african greys normally hit their peak weight. I know my similar sized amazons usually hit it at about 45 days old, but greys could be significantly different. If your baby is past the age where it would normally hit its peak weight, then it would be normal for it to want less food abut now. I'd feed it 3-4 times a day giving it about 8-12% of its body weight at each feed. So a 500 gram baby would be getting about 50g of food give or take a little bit. Feed it until it doesn't want any more but don't go over 12% of its body weight and many babies that age won't take over 10% and many less. Don't harass and sweet talk the baby trying to get the full 50cc into it. If it doesn't want it, it doesn't want it. However, do make sure your formula isn't getting cool while you attempt to hand-feed. Put the syringe or bowl of formula in a warm water bath at about 110 degrees so it doesn't get cold if it takes you more than a couple minutes to feed the chick. Best to just decrease length of time between feeds and offer more often. During the day, feed when the baby is almost empty-I usually feed them when their crop is abut 10-20% full from the previous meal. Let the baby empty at night. If the baby doesn't empty somewhere between 7 and 9 hours without feeding, then you'll need to take it to the vet to make sure it doesn't have a bacterial infection. Generally, I try to make sure they are never empty during the day and only empty for an hour or two at night so I can sleep and so their crop can empty out and prevent bacterial build up.
Now, if in fact your baby is in post peak weight loss phase, and starts generally acting uninterested in food, then you might start waiting until its crop is empty to see if that helps motivate it. I don't usually go by a certain number of feeds or a certain amount fed for babies at this age. They are usually pretty determined to drop weight, so I feed them when they are hungry as much as I can get into them without going over the 8-12% of their body weight rule in order to prevent over stretching their crop. I also make sure they empty at night at the very least.
For weaning, at this age, you can start scattering some pellets around the floor of the brooder or put a small bowl on the bottom of the cage. Hopefully if you've put it in a cage already its one low to the ground and the baby will spend most of its time on the cage floor or a very low perch. Please don't try putting a young baby in a big cage where it can climb to the top, lose its balance, fall and split open its keel on the cage grate. Not cool. Also, with smaller, lower cages, keeping food on the floor means the baby will almost always have contact with food to nibble. You can also try some microwaved sweet potatoes cooked until soft and mixed with cooked rice, beans and quinoa. Offer warm in a bowl and remove it after a couple of hours. Don't get the canned beans because it is full of sodium. Soak and cook the beans and rice until soft and feed at hand-feeding temperature. Until the baby has been flying for a few weeks, you probably won't make much progress on weaning. Most likely the baby will just learn about food by crunching it up and smearing it all over the place. Hopefully no one has clipped this baby's flight feathers already as that will delay everything.
From that point, I just offer as many hand-feeds as the chick will take. I don't follow any hard rule about number of feeds through weaning as it changes daily. I usually maintain on 3-4 feeds a day until the chick gets difficult to persuade to take enough worth bothering with on one or more feeds and then I experiment with eliminating that feeding and proceed according to the chicks behavior. One day the baby might only chug two feeds and spit and dribble the third all over the place. The next day it cries pitifully and wants 4 feeds. I just go with the flow until the baby consistently refuses to take a feeding for a full week or more before I stop offering it. I would guess most congo greys are not likely to be fully weaned until somewhere around 4 months old give or take a few weeks and possibly extending another month or two depending on how skilled you are at getting the baby to eat grown up food without stressing it out. Eating adult food should be a natural process where the chick discovers it on its own. For the most part, you should not be chasing the baby around with pellets or spoon fulls of veggies trying to get it to eat adult food because doing so means the chick may take forever to figure out it has to eat on its own. Make sure it has plenty of time in its cage between meals to eat. The chick will be most likely to eat adult food immediately after a hand-feeding. So, that is not a time to carry the baby around and play with it. Feed, put back in cage with a new batch of warm veggies and pellets and then walk away. Don't stand there staring at the baby willing it to eat. Leave and let the chick discover that it can eat on its own.
In the end, weaning babies can be complicated to do it right without causing your bird to become a neurotic mess. When in doubt, return baby to breeder and tell them to give you the finished product when done.
