Pictures Meet Zephyr, Our Re-Homed Pionus!

[Nostromo]

Hi everybody!

Yesterday we brought home Zephyr, a sweet 8 year old female blue-head who was needing a new home after her former owners gave her up due to health concerns (theirs, not hers). She is our first bird! She appears to be a very sweet, tame, well looked after young lady. We're so, so excited to be welcoming her into our family... it feels almost like bringing home a baby! She has had a very stressful month; she was given up from her home, where she'd been all her life, to the specialty parrot store that she came from. She was at the store only two weeks before we got her yesterday. She seems anxious but is eating & drinking.

I have a couple of new-parront questions for you guys...

1. I've read a lot of conflicting advice on how to let a new bird settle in to the household. Some sources say to leave them alone in their cage; others say to handle as much as possible. So far we've been trying to strike a middle ground and follow her lead. Last night (first night home) we had her cage door open and she came out to go on top of the cage; she seemed kind of antsy, pacing around. She did lower her head and ask for scritches from my boyfriend (seems like she mildly prefers him so far). Today I've had her door open for a while and she's chirping at and looking at me, she grooming herself and stretching comfortably on her favorite perch and has come down to eat from her bowl, but has made no move to come out. My instinct is to just let her take her time - but should I back off entirely and keep her door closed so she feels more secure? Also, in your guys' experience, how long does a re-homed bird take to settle in? Any pointers on making the transition as smooth as possible?

2. She is coming from a diet of mixed dried seeds and vegetables. So far she's munched some seeds, drank some water (we watched her do this - YAY!) and had no interest in veggies. I'd like to transition her base diet to be majority Roudybush pellets rather than seed. Any advice on doing this with older, re-homed birds? I figure I won't even present the pellets until at least a week or two has gone by so I don't add to her stress. On the other hand, I think it could be only the store she was at that was feeding her seeds - we have no clue what she was eating at home for the past 8 years. No info was given from her owners about diet, toys, or preferences

3. Should we take her to an avian vet straight away? We have an excellent local avian vet. The store advised to not take her right away as the trip is usually stressful and she's already so stressed; they provided a health guarantee that they had done disease testing and if she got sick in the first 2 weeks they would provide a full refund. Obviously we're less concerned about a refund than her health, so we've thought about taking her in right away for a check-up, but it does seem like it'd be incredibly stressful after her big move. Would we be okay to wait a few weeks or even a month since we have no other birds she might make sick?

Thank you guys so much for all your help!! Attached is a picture of her chilling on her favorite perch in her new home, and one of her sitting on my bf's hand at the store before we got her

 

[Wannabird2003]

Congrats! I don't have the experience to answer your questions since I only have my BH female that I got as a baby 15 yrs ago. I think if it was me, I would want to take her to the vet to make sure before you get too awfully attached. Maybe that vet could answer some of your questions. Looks like she has a nice set up and she looks in fine feather.

I will say that my Jade likes to have alone time and then other times she likes attention like being on your shoulder and affection in the form of head scratches. Mine doesn't eat as many pellets as she should- eats Zupreem fruit type and primarily the purple ones. My vet said that the Nutriberries are nutritious and she likes those. She does eat a variety of dried fruit, veg, nuts and seed in her afternoon mix. In the morning, I give her fresh veg and birdie bread that I make. The vegs are a spoonful of frozen mixed veg, a grape, 3 pomegranate arils, 2 sugar snap peas (she only eats the peas within) and a chunk of birdie bread that she forages in.

I make the bread using a box of Jiffy corn muffin mix. Follow the instructions, but add 3 additional eggs, little bit unsweetened applesauce, peanut butter, sweet potatoes, raisins, dried banana chips, pine nuts, almonds, whatever. The bird loves to pick through it looking for the goodies and loves it. I bake it and then cut it into small cubes which I freeze.

Good luck and let us know how it goes.

 

[Nostromo]

Thank you! This is helpful I love the bird bread suggestion, and the Nutriberry. I also plan to sprout some seeds for her to see if I can get some more nutrition from her seed mix.

 

[finchly]

Hello and welcome!

Let the bird telll you when she wants to come out. You can ask her to step up but Pi's tend to be a little grouchy around their cage, so she may not step up from inside it. I have a perch on the outside, and keep the door open all the time. Ernie comes to his outer perch to ask for scritches, ask to step up, or generally supervise.

You will think she is settled in long before she settles in. Birds take a LONG time to settle in. Sit near her and sing or read aloud or just go about your business so she can watch you and get used to you.

Diet - fresh veggies and pellets. Very little seed for Pionus. Here are some of the favorite foods around here: sweet potato, cooked egg, radish, peppers (the hotter the better), parsley, broccoli, and strangely Ernie loves cauliflower. Oh and spaghetti, how could I forget his pasta addiction.

Personally I don't do the Jiffy mix because of the sugar, but that's just me. There are recipes on this site for lots of bird breads.

Ernie went crazy over today's chop so I'll list it here:

1-1/2 yellow squash
1 large carrot
handful fresh parsley
1/2 cucumber, peeled
2 large romaine leaves
2 handfuls kale
There has to be more, the food processor was full.
Anyway I used the shred blade on ALL of it (I'm experimenting with food sizes, I have lots of birds). Then I stirred in:
1 cup Harrison's very fine pellets
1 cup pumpkin puree from a can

(trying to use up the Harrison's as they'll eat it in chop or bread but not by itself.)

I sprinkled it with some powdered oats and wheatgrass. Stirred well and gave Ernie about 3 Tablespoons. He was still eating when I left the room - it's a hit! Other birds got a tablespoon of dry egg food on top; I didn't think of it until after His Highness had his. One mustn't disturb the Pi.

 

[iamwhoiam]

Welcome to AA. Congrats on getting Zephyr.

 

[Dartman]

They like to observe their area and figure everything out for a while so just let her do as she chooses and she'll decide when she ready and who to choose as her favorite flock mate. If you let them earn their trust and affection you'll have a friend for the rest of her hopefully long life. Nerd made it at least 31 years with me and he was a Maxi.

 

[camelotshadow]

Jiffy is full of sugar & hydrogenated oils.

Cornbread is so easy to make

Just buy cornmeal, buttermilk or milk or water, 2 eggs teasp or 2 baking powder & some coconut oil & maybe a spoon of honey...that;s it no chemicals.

 

[Nostromo]

Hi guys,

Thanks for the input! So far today she's eaten some fresh cauliflower and kale, gotten some more scritches, climbed around her cage a bit to explore and generally been keeping her watchful eyes on us We're thinking of buying Harrison's Bird Bread mixture and adding in some vegetables and pellets to start getting her used to the taste of pellets - anybody had success with that mix?

Also, last night I tried to cover her cage before bed but it panicked her. Should I wait until she's all settled before trying again? Any tips on helping her accept a cover? We live in a smallish apartment so she'll need a cover to get her 10-12 hours of darkness.

Thanks again! This site is the bomb for anxious new owners like us!

 

[greys4u]

Try covering only 3 sides and leave one open, that might work . Do you know if she was covered before? If I saw this big monster coming towards me I'd panic too. She is one beautiful lady, you have a diva on your hands.....

 

[Begone]

My advice is to never cover a Pionus as they can get night fights. To use a blue LED night lamp is also important so she never sleeps in total dark.

And welcome! She is very cute and you will love her so much, girls are the sweetest.

 

[Love My Zons]

Congrats on your new Pi!:congratsbig: Beautiful bird and you will get lots of great info here! Welcome too!

 

[Roxhum]

Congratulations on your new family member. I got a few months ago a rehomed Blue Crown conure from a bird store and it has been such fun. I was all prepared to go slow but Pampa was so tame he had different ideas. So my advice would be to follow the birds lead. Sounds like you are off to an excellent start. O don’t know anything about pionus but for Pampa I cover just the top portion of his cage with a beach towel. I use clothes pins to attach it. That way no lights are shining on him. He is in the living room so I try to be quiet but I am still up for a coup,e of hours. It seems to be working out for us.

 

[Nostromo]

Thanks everyone! I think for now I will leave her uncovered, I'll maybe try a partial cover later on once she's a little more settled and confident I am also going to leave a low light on to try to prevent night frights.

A great first day! She came out and explored the top of her cage, ate almost all of her food, drank plenty of water, and has started making sweet little chirps when I talk to her We feel very lucky to be welcoming her into our family!

 

[sunnysmom]

Congrats on your new bird!

 

[javi]

I have 4 pi's and only one was a baby I hand fed. They are wonderful birds so congrats. In my opinion there is not better genus of birds. Heehee. Start offering any foods you want her to try now. She will most likely ignore them but at least she will learn they are gonna be the norm in her cage. I will cover cage only partly and add a night light. The front of my birds cages is all that is covered and it seems to work well. They will only have a night thrashing if my tiels have a night fright.
A little more advice. They can be territorial with cage at least sometimes. They love to chew and shred. Anything they can destroy is their best friend. They leave most bells and acrylic toys alone. However when I place cut up cardboard in between cage bars they all start chewing. They are not the most active birds and can be quite sedentary so offer lots of flying/flapping time. Baths are a big hit (except for the 20 year old rescue who probably hadn't had a bath in years). They will hang upside down and fan out wings and do love to go to shower with their owners (make sure you sing in shower).

 

[Nostromo]

GUYS!

So the Roudybush pellets came in the mail today, and just on a lark we decided to fill her seed mix bowl with pellets and see what she thought... and she immediately started GOBBLING THEM DOWN!!! I'm 90% sure she's eating them - I know parrots can be kind of tricky about playing vs eating, but she's been sitting at her bowl crunching away for 5 minutes now. About a third of what she picks up from the bowl breaks off and flies away, but I think that's just because she's a messy eater. I'll watch her poops carefully to make sure she's getting enough food - but WOW, what a relief!!! We figure her old owners must have been feeding her pellets. I think she honestly looks relieved to have some pellets back!

 

[Begone]

That is really really great!

 

[LSA]

CONGRATULATIONS!!! How exciting, right? What a great name!
Sherman is my first ever Pionus and these members have really helped me! Not only that, they've put up with my extreme excitement over seemingly unimportant events.

I tried a separate night cage to help with her falling but she didn't seem pleased. Now Sherman seems happiest in her uncovered cage with a night light (LED) in a dark room with the door shut.

Right away, Sherman fell in love with chop, but to this day hates sprouts. She doesn't seems to care for the Tops pellets I started switching her to. The rest of the flock gets Harrison's, so that's most likely what she'll be switched to over the next few months.

If you have an AV, take her asap! If not, find one asap and take her! If you have other birds, I sure hope you quarantined her. Every new flockmate gets two things: quarantined and at least one AV check up with labs. Usually, they get the pre- quarantine full exam and the post- quarantine light exam.

Sherman's door stayed open when I was with her. It took two months for her to venture out.

If Zephyr (great name) regresses or seems more fearful of you later, it's just a Pionus thing and not something y'all did. It just means "the honeymoon's over." HAHA

Again, CONGRATULATIONS!!!! ​

 

[Nostromo]

Thanks!! This afternoon she actually came to her door and started leaning forward like she was getting ready to fly off... I walked up and she raised her little foot! She wanted to step up and say hello for the first time We showed her to her perch by our chairs and she munched an almond and explored the new area very happily. So she's quite a friendly outgoing girl. She did get labs done through her store, and we don't have other birds. But we will be setting her up with an AV before long

 

[LSA]

Yea, Zephyr!!!

Almond slivers and pieces of apple slices did the trick with Sherman! (She's ~7yo and a rescue.)

Currently, her pellets are fruity Zupreem, but she doesn't have a favorite color. The two reasons for considuring a change is because I'm cheap and lazy (by ordering all at once, I save on shipping fees and don't have to think which pellets are for who) and she's overweight.

The AV will want to know the results or the clinic. So have that all written down and/or get them from Zephyr's vet. Otherwise, she might have to go through them, again.

Sherman not only loves corn but the cobs as well. In fact, my AV suggested I eat the kernels and give her the cob. Another option is frozen corn so you can control how much Zephyr gets.

In addition to apples, corn cobs and almonds, most any birds LOVE grapes! They're also good (cut them in half) water replacers if you have a long drive to the AV.

Zephyr sounds like a happy bird with loving paronts!