I would have him vetted. I just looked up my records for my amazon babies and it looks like most of mine are really starting to dig into their food at around 85-88 days old give or take a few. If your bird is a little behind mine maybe because he was sold unweaned and a little stressed out, then I would think you should see him seriously starting to make food disapear by now. Or at least minimally crunching a bunch of food up and playing with it. Usually mine have been playing with their food and scattering it all over the floor a few weeks before they actually start eating it. By 3 months, mine have all been eating a little bit at least on their own. Sometimes a slight bacterial infection will cause them to wean slower or not at all. If the vet trip turns out that he is healthy, then start trying to get him to eat mashy food from your fingers. Things like cooked sweet potato mashed into clumps and mixed with a little banana, cooked rice or oatmeal. Also, sometimes it does help to get them started on eating on their own by giving them a small hand-feeding to take the edge off the hunger so they feel confident enough to eat on their own. Typically, my younger babies will go directly to the food bowl after a hand-feeding.
What are you offering him to eat? Things like parrot to macaw sized pellets are a good starter food. A lot of my babies have a hard time with the beak coordination needed to eat a lot of seed that young. Cherios are okay as introduction food until you see him really starting to eat a lot on his own. Frozen and microwaved until slightly warm peas and corn are good. They are just big enough to pick up with clumsy baby beaks and really squishy which they like. Offer a variety, but make sure they have access to some mid to large sized pellets and clumps or large pieces of soft veggies. Boiled carrots that are allowed to cook might be good to.
Is there any chance this baby is younger than you think it is? How trustworthy was the breeder?
Is there any particular reason you have him on 2 feeds a day instead of 1 or 3? If he's refusing a mid day feeding and that is why you dropped him to two, then that is normal. If you have him on two feeds a day because a breeder told you that is how often you're supposed to feed him and he's crying like crazy, I'd up him to at least a small meal during the day. Say around 15-20cc just to take the edge off and hopefully he'll go for his grown up food then. If he doesn't go for his grown up food and still begs like crazy then he might need to be at three feeds a day for now. How much are you giving him per feeding? Babies at this age can be strange. You can't really have a schedule. Some days they will want 3-4 hand-feedings and act desperate, and some days you can barely get two into them. I'd rather feed less food more often than a lot of food less often. Its not uncommon for me to throw in a third or fourth hand-feeding for a long time until they seriously refuse and go down to one before bedtime just for comfort. But at the three month mark, a decent number of those feedings are in the 15cc range with maybe one or two meals in the 30-50cc range. Depending on what they want that day. Don't chase him around trying to get him to eat, but if he's crying and really chugging down the formula then that tells me he wants more food. If he's seriously not even playing with adult food you either need to vet him or make sure he's able to eat what your offering. I usually wean my babies in low to the ground small dog style wire carriers. I keep the food bowl on the floor in a very shallow cat dish that is very easy access. Sometimes they don't have the coordination to both perch and eat at this age, so you need to make it super easy to get to.
Melissa
