Hi everyone !
I'm coming to you with a pretty common little problem that isn't really one, but more to check out with you guys if I'm acting like I should towards it
My baby boy Oliver finally arrived to me last Saturday !
A bit of background :
Oliver hatched on the 01/03 so he's now around 10 weeks.
The person I bought him from, which is only in the bird "industry" as she said, since a year, is a young girl that to me, lack a bit of experience.
I posted a thread a while ago about me visiting Oliver and the fact that he escaped flying by the wide open door and that luckily after more than 3 hours of research we were able to find him.
After that she wanted to clip him because she couldn't control his flying, to which I insisted that I wanted him not clipped, and that I could take him earlier if it was too stressing for her. But she insisted that he should be sold fully weaned and that for now except from grapes and millet spray and pellets (his main diet, not great), he wasn't touching any other fruit/veg.
So I was gonna wait but then 4 days later she sends me a text telling me that her boyfriend (which is also part of the business they have) was getting sick of Oliver's morning squawks and that I could come pick him up now, that he was almost weaned anyway and that she was gonna give me baby formula to sustain for another week or so.
I took him straight away as I rather knowing him in my hands anyway and because I was ready to take him. Since the first day he has eaten every piece of fruit and veg I gave him with great enthusiasm, which makes me think she might not have offered him a big variety. She did a great job to raise him though, he's healthy and so adorable and tame.
Now about the squawks first.
I've read everything I could about it, I just have trouble to find out the difference between the squawks from a baby that just call for food, or the squawks of communication/attention.
To describe it best:
Oliver wakes up and play in his cage until he can see me move or hear me get up, and then he start to squawks veeery loudly, every 2/3 seconde.
From there what I usually do is that I leave the room and ignore him. I respond the first time because generally it's a cute noise but then he starts to squawks and I ignore that. He has food in his cage so he's not starving but I guess he's calling by reflex for his baby food. I only leave the time to get his food ready in the kitchen, and as soon as I do, he stops. He never squawks when I'm not in the room. I've already been to work an entire day and my roommate haven't heard a sound.
That's the part that tickles me, if he was really calling for food, should he not keep calling even after I leave the room?
Anyway, I usually come back in the room, and he start squawking again. I usually sit down and wait for him to calm down a few minutes but generally in the morning he doesn't really, and I live in a sharehouse and don't really want to make my roommates cranky about huge call at 7 am. But I don't want to either encourage a behaviour if it's for attention.
So I'm coming to you to know what is best for the morning?
I end up taking him out after a few minutes when the squawks are less loud and more spare and praise him, but as soon as I do he starts back on squawking like crazy, so I just stop talking and ignore him and sat him on the towel to start feeding. In between each spoon, you guessed it, SQUAWKS!! So I know that this is to ask for more, so what I do is that I make sure to give him the spoon after a few seconds of silence, and if he squawks when I'm on the point to give him I move the spoon back and wait for the next silence. I know I need to keep doing that but so far there's no result.
After that I give him his bowl of fruit/veg/sprouting seeds for him to keep eating, but he generally kinda ignore it at first and keep going on with the squawks, so usually I leave the room and leave him on his play gym with the bowl and I take the time to clean the dish from the morning in the kitchen. Sure enough as soon as I leave he stop squawking and when I come back he has his head right in the bowl! But start squawking again.
From that point on it will follow the same routine all day, as soon as I have him on me, play with him, feed him or else, the squawks are here every 3 second, generally though they are way less loud during the day and I can tell that he just wants to communicate. He will stop it as soon as he's back in his cage or when I leave the room, and when in his cage he will start making adorable noise. Which I always praise a lot and make sure to click the clicker. But as soon as I do he quit the cute noise and SQUAAWKKS !!
I do see a change in the last couple of days, he is making more cute noise and less squawks, or less loud. I do training session where he is on his stand and I know all he wants is cuddles, so I come close to pet him but as soon as I do he squawks, so I walk a meter away and turn my back. He will stay silent until I come back and as soon as I pet him he will automatically squawks
I do that for 10 minutes each times and he gets it by the end, and when I'm able to pet him more than a few seconde without squawks he has the right ro step up for cuddles.
Same when he falls asleep on my chest, I turn my eyes and my hand away and break eye contact each time. It works as well after a while. If he doesn't stop but already has been fed I just put him in his cage and he calms down.
There's already a lot of progress so far. I had to stop typing because he was falling asleep on his bong perch and was making the most adorable noise, I kept praising him and asking him question to which he responded by nice noise rather than squawks so he had a good pet.
He's back in his cage a bit sleepy and has a ball playing with his toys right now, I just rotate them and for the first time since I have him I see him play! Everything full of cute noise.
The other morning he said "hello" which is crazy as he's barely 11 weeks.
I make sure to always ignore, stay silent and eyes away for the squawking session but sometimes (morning) it gets challenging.
Is there anything else I should do? Should I consider the morning call as a feeding call and respond to it or keep doing what I do? I think her breeder use to rush and feed him each time he was squawking so maybe there's that. I read that in nature the bigger the baby grows, the longer the mom waits to feed him, until one day he quits begging all together.
Any advice?
No for the weaning part. I have raised and hand fed baby ekkies before in a bird sanctuary but under supervision, and I am not sure of what to do with Oliver.
He eats a lot, baby food or not, he empties his bowl of fruits and veg, seeds, millets, every day. He has two feeds a day, generally morning is sprouted seeds/fruit/veg and he has millets during the day as he loves it more as a treat that he has to forage for (start teaching him foraging yesterday and he's having a blast) and in the evening it's normally a warm meal, mash pumpkin, rice, peas corn, spinach, a few nuts, and once a week an egg (he loves it !)
I keep adding pellets to his morning fruit and veg and at night, I just sprinkle them above the rest. He used to eat almost exclusively that so I'm gonna decrease progressively but he already shows less interest for them than the rest.
To that, every morning I also give him a bit of formula. The thing is that I don't know when to stop? What quantity to give him? How long should I keep this morning feed going on?
She didn't know his weigh when I got him and I am going to buy a scale today to keep track, but jesus what a big eater !
I think I mentioned everything, sorry it's a long post but I'm just a new worried mom
Thanks for those who has read up to now and let me know everything
I'm coming to you with a pretty common little problem that isn't really one, but more to check out with you guys if I'm acting like I should towards it
My baby boy Oliver finally arrived to me last Saturday !
A bit of background :
Oliver hatched on the 01/03 so he's now around 10 weeks.
The person I bought him from, which is only in the bird "industry" as she said, since a year, is a young girl that to me, lack a bit of experience.
I posted a thread a while ago about me visiting Oliver and the fact that he escaped flying by the wide open door and that luckily after more than 3 hours of research we were able to find him.
After that she wanted to clip him because she couldn't control his flying, to which I insisted that I wanted him not clipped, and that I could take him earlier if it was too stressing for her. But she insisted that he should be sold fully weaned and that for now except from grapes and millet spray and pellets (his main diet, not great), he wasn't touching any other fruit/veg.
So I was gonna wait but then 4 days later she sends me a text telling me that her boyfriend (which is also part of the business they have) was getting sick of Oliver's morning squawks and that I could come pick him up now, that he was almost weaned anyway and that she was gonna give me baby formula to sustain for another week or so.
I took him straight away as I rather knowing him in my hands anyway and because I was ready to take him. Since the first day he has eaten every piece of fruit and veg I gave him with great enthusiasm, which makes me think she might not have offered him a big variety. She did a great job to raise him though, he's healthy and so adorable and tame.
Now about the squawks first.
I've read everything I could about it, I just have trouble to find out the difference between the squawks from a baby that just call for food, or the squawks of communication/attention.
To describe it best:
Oliver wakes up and play in his cage until he can see me move or hear me get up, and then he start to squawks veeery loudly, every 2/3 seconde.
From there what I usually do is that I leave the room and ignore him. I respond the first time because generally it's a cute noise but then he starts to squawks and I ignore that. He has food in his cage so he's not starving but I guess he's calling by reflex for his baby food. I only leave the time to get his food ready in the kitchen, and as soon as I do, he stops. He never squawks when I'm not in the room. I've already been to work an entire day and my roommate haven't heard a sound.
That's the part that tickles me, if he was really calling for food, should he not keep calling even after I leave the room?
Anyway, I usually come back in the room, and he start squawking again. I usually sit down and wait for him to calm down a few minutes but generally in the morning he doesn't really, and I live in a sharehouse and don't really want to make my roommates cranky about huge call at 7 am. But I don't want to either encourage a behaviour if it's for attention.
So I'm coming to you to know what is best for the morning?
I end up taking him out after a few minutes when the squawks are less loud and more spare and praise him, but as soon as I do he starts back on squawking like crazy, so I just stop talking and ignore him and sat him on the towel to start feeding. In between each spoon, you guessed it, SQUAWKS!! So I know that this is to ask for more, so what I do is that I make sure to give him the spoon after a few seconds of silence, and if he squawks when I'm on the point to give him I move the spoon back and wait for the next silence. I know I need to keep doing that but so far there's no result.
After that I give him his bowl of fruit/veg/sprouting seeds for him to keep eating, but he generally kinda ignore it at first and keep going on with the squawks, so usually I leave the room and leave him on his play gym with the bowl and I take the time to clean the dish from the morning in the kitchen. Sure enough as soon as I leave he stop squawking and when I come back he has his head right in the bowl! But start squawking again.
From that point on it will follow the same routine all day, as soon as I have him on me, play with him, feed him or else, the squawks are here every 3 second, generally though they are way less loud during the day and I can tell that he just wants to communicate. He will stop it as soon as he's back in his cage or when I leave the room, and when in his cage he will start making adorable noise. Which I always praise a lot and make sure to click the clicker. But as soon as I do he quit the cute noise and SQUAAWKKS !!
I do see a change in the last couple of days, he is making more cute noise and less squawks, or less loud. I do training session where he is on his stand and I know all he wants is cuddles, so I come close to pet him but as soon as I do he squawks, so I walk a meter away and turn my back. He will stay silent until I come back and as soon as I pet him he will automatically squawks
I do that for 10 minutes each times and he gets it by the end, and when I'm able to pet him more than a few seconde without squawks he has the right ro step up for cuddles.
Same when he falls asleep on my chest, I turn my eyes and my hand away and break eye contact each time. It works as well after a while. If he doesn't stop but already has been fed I just put him in his cage and he calms down.
There's already a lot of progress so far. I had to stop typing because he was falling asleep on his bong perch and was making the most adorable noise, I kept praising him and asking him question to which he responded by nice noise rather than squawks so he had a good pet.
He's back in his cage a bit sleepy and has a ball playing with his toys right now, I just rotate them and for the first time since I have him I see him play! Everything full of cute noise.
The other morning he said "hello" which is crazy as he's barely 11 weeks.
I make sure to always ignore, stay silent and eyes away for the squawking session but sometimes (morning) it gets challenging.
Is there anything else I should do? Should I consider the morning call as a feeding call and respond to it or keep doing what I do? I think her breeder use to rush and feed him each time he was squawking so maybe there's that. I read that in nature the bigger the baby grows, the longer the mom waits to feed him, until one day he quits begging all together.
Any advice?
No for the weaning part. I have raised and hand fed baby ekkies before in a bird sanctuary but under supervision, and I am not sure of what to do with Oliver.
He eats a lot, baby food or not, he empties his bowl of fruits and veg, seeds, millets, every day. He has two feeds a day, generally morning is sprouted seeds/fruit/veg and he has millets during the day as he loves it more as a treat that he has to forage for (start teaching him foraging yesterday and he's having a blast) and in the evening it's normally a warm meal, mash pumpkin, rice, peas corn, spinach, a few nuts, and once a week an egg (he loves it !)
I keep adding pellets to his morning fruit and veg and at night, I just sprinkle them above the rest. He used to eat almost exclusively that so I'm gonna decrease progressively but he already shows less interest for them than the rest.
To that, every morning I also give him a bit of formula. The thing is that I don't know when to stop? What quantity to give him? How long should I keep this morning feed going on?
She didn't know his weigh when I got him and I am going to buy a scale today to keep track, but jesus what a big eater !
I think I mentioned everything, sorry it's a long post but I'm just a new worried mom
Thanks for those who has read up to now and let me know everything