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Healthy weight for GCC?

elitys

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I'm such a worrier. I weighed my 5 month old green cheek today, and she is 57.3 grams. I saw that 60-80 is the norm for them, and I'm assuming she's fine, but I just wanted to check that the number is probably low because she's still young. I'm going to weigh her more over the next few weeks, just to make sure she isn't losing weight.

She eats well. Gets chop during the day until she finishes it, and then has pellets until the next morning when she gets her chop again. Not sure about how much exercise she gets as she was clipped when I got her, so she can't fly right now, but I intend to have her flighted once they grow back. She does play a lot and likes to wrestle with one of those jingly cat toys, though, and she is quite the climber. Hangs by her feet from the roof of her cage, giving me a heart attack every time, the bugger.

Anyways, help me ease my first-time-parront worries, or let me know if there's a reason for them.
 

taxidermynerd

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She's still young, so she's not going to hit her adult weight until she's closer to a year old. :)

I believe @webchirp and @Mockinbirdiva both have multiple adult cheekies, so they'll probably be of more help than I :)
 

webchirp

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They don’t reach their full weight until a year or more. Also research keel bones and how they should feel.
 

tka

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I would go by her keel bone rather than the norm for her species. Just like in humans, there is variation in size within a species population. What may be overweight for a smaller GCC may be underweight for a larger GCC. You can also expect her weight to fluctuate when her flight feathers come in - she'll hopefully build muscle and perhaps lose fat.
 

Mockinbirdiva

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She may be a petite GCC. Have you felt her keel bone to see if it's sharp or fairly even with the muscles on each side of the keel ( midline of the chest)? She still has some filling out to do and it's great you have a gram scale to keep track of her weight. You might consider a journal of the dates you weigh her along with the weight. Are you pulling her pellets out of the cage while she has her chop? If so, I'd leave her pellets in so she has access to them all the time. What is in her chop and what brand of pellets are you feeding?
 

elitys

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She may be a petite GCC. Have you felt her keel bone to see if it's sharp or fairly even with the muscles on each side of the keel ( midline of the chest)? She still has some filling out to do and it's great you have a gram scale to keep track of her weight. You might consider a journal of the dates you weigh her along with the weight. Are you pulling her pellets out of the cage while she has her chop? If so, I'd leave her pellets in so she has access to them all the time. What is in her chop and what brand of pellets are you feeding?
This week's chop rough measurements:
  • 30-40% quinoa and quinoa pasta (both slightly under cooked)
  • 50-60% greens (Swiss chard, purple lettuce, bok choy, green cabbage), carrots, green beans, mung bean sprouts
  • max 10% raspberries, blackberries
I do leave her pellets out of the cage when she has chop, just because she prefers the pellets so much that she won't eat her veggies if she can choose not to. However, the pellets are given to her right after she finishes it, and they are left in the cage all night and in the morning until about 10am. And she doesn't dislike the chop by any means, just prefers the pellets, so when she just has chop, she eats it and won't starve herself or anything.

Petsmart is now selling the Caitec Oven Baked pellets, just re-branded under the All Living Things name. So those are the pellets she's eating.

She saw the vet yesterday for her new-bird appointment, and the vet gave her a clean bill of health. Speaking of "her," gonna know if I guessed correctly about that in about a week :laughing2:
 
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