New linnie - need help with diet and behavior

[rxxysh]

I have brought home my new linnie, about 10 weeks old now, not hand-fed. I've had him (don't actually know the sex) for about 5 days. He is not my first bird, I've had budgies and zebras before. The breeder gave me some seeds for him, but I've read pellets are healthier for them? If so, which ones? I also feed him fresh veggies and fruit 3 times a day. I chop them up for him and feed them to him, but he is apple obsessed. He did not eat any of the veggies I chopped up for him this morning and just ate the apple. Is this healthy for him, eating all this apple?

He seems happy to see me in the morning and will come to the side of the cage where I am and chirp at me and try to hang off the bars where I am. He will eat from my hand and will chirp at me when I go and talk to him. I don't want to push him and stress him out, I'm not sure how slow I am supposed to go here. He won't step on my hand yet. TIA

 

[Dona]

Hi and welcome! I have a 2 year old female normal green Linnie. Here is Gigi's diet:

Roudybush mini pellets 24/7
cooked veggies in morning
1-2 Nutri-berries in afternoon
occasional bits from our evening dinner

It sounds like your new bird in interested in you! Chirping, coming near and taking food from you is a terrific start! What happens if you open the cage door? Does Linnie seem interested or actually come out? Then what happens? I think lots of apple would be too much sugar. Maybe only offer apple outside of the cage? As a treat and an opportunity to hang out near or with you? Do you have a play gym or something he/she can do outside of the cage? I think taking it slow is a great way to build a bond that is 2 way. Give your Linnie lots of choices.

We love pictures!!!! Let's see your new baby!

 

[rxxysh]

Hi and welcome! I have a 2 year old female normal green Linnie. Here is Gigi's diet:

Roudybush mini pellets 24/7
cooked veggies in morning
1-2 Nutri-berries in afternoon
occasional bits from our evening dinner

It sounds like your new bird in interested in you! Chirping, coming near and taking food from you is a terrific start! What happens if you open the cage door? Does Linnie seem interested or actually come out? Then what happens? I think lots of apple would be too much sugar. Maybe only offer apple outside of the cage? As a treat and an opportunity to hang out near or with you? Do you have a play gym or something he/she can do outside of the cage? I think taking it slow is a great way to build a bond that is 2 way. Give your Linnie lots of choices.

We love pictures!!!! Let's see your new baby!

Thanks for answering. I am in the UK, so not sure what pellets we have available here, but I will certainly look into it. He is not really interested in the seeds, but will pick the sunflower seeds out of it. For example, this morning I gave him a mix of salad, peppers, apple, grapes and carrots. He picked just the apple out and left the rest. I gave him more apples in the afternoon and stuck to just veggies at dinner.

Yes, it does seem to me like he's interested, especially in the morning when he's hungry. He chirps when I go near his cage and talk to him (most of the time, sometimes he doesn't want anything to do with me and I leave him alone). I am not really letting him outside of his cage because he's still scared of us. When I put my hand in, even with the apple, he won't step on my hand, just feed out of it, so I want him to be okay with us before we let him out so putting him back in the cage at night won't be such a big event. He has a play gym, perches, a bigger cage, a coconut nest and more toys coming (delivery taking forever). Sometimes he will come to the side of the cage where I am and hang off it and bite at the bars, or just press up against them? I'm not sure what he wants.
My budgies were always out when I was home and would just hang out. They had perches and toys on the floor to play with, but mostly they would just come and sit on my shoulder or on my head while I went about my business. I was allowed to give the occasional scratch, but they didn't really like to be touched. I'm hopinh I can get the little guy to hang out with me as well.

 

[NorthernGannet]

Hi there! Eating too much of any one thing isn't so good in the long run, even for us humans. But for what it's worth, one of mine that was parent-raised was raised on only seed (and not even a good mixture at that). I will say that exclusively seed did not seem like a good diet for him. You could tell, physically, and he had a gross habit of eating poop (dried poop, fresh poop, any poop!). So now he is on a mix of a good seed mixture (lots of variety but no sunflower, no safflower) and pellets, with fruit too. He voluntarily started eating the pellets to a degree, so that's good. I mix some in with the seed but also have a dedicated pellet cup up high in the cage where they spend lots of time, for them to nibble on. I primarly offer Roudybush crumbles, but I threw a little of the small Pretty Bird in there and have seen them eating that too sometimes.

Mine like apples, but they also love peaches (even canned ones in 100% juice, rinsed off), grapes and one likes blueberries. Sometimes they try pears but so far it's not a hit. Mine don't seem big on veggies, but they finally tried some corn the other day!

I just haven't had luck with my birds like the Nutri-berry's too much. I have 3 bags of different flavors that no one will touch. They do like eating Lafeber's small Avi-Cakes from my hand though, but not if I just put it in their dish. Lol. I give them a sprig of millet about once a week, just for fun while they're out.

I don't use sunflower at all, but i use safflower seeds and hemp seeds as a treat from my fingers.

It took my guys awhile, but eventually they started voluntarily hanging out with me when out of their cages. They are out on their own and come over to me to check-in every so often. Sometimes they come to my shoulder, sometimes they land on my head (not encouraged!), sometimes they just cling onto whatever's nearby and lean over towards me to look at what I'm doing. They are very social but not cuddly. I'm sure yours will hang out with you!

Once your baby learns to step up and you start taking him out, it will be great! It took my guys from 8-14 days to learn to step up, mostly working with them in the evenings. The three of them each had a different learning pace. A bit hectic at first, but so worth it now.

-NG

 

[tka]

I am in the UK, so not sure what pellets we have available here, but I will certainly look into it.

Here are some places in the UK to get pelleted food:

Pellet Complete Diets For Birds | Scarletts Parrot Essentials

We stock the full range of pelleted bird foods at Scarletts Parrot Essentials. Leading bird food brands such as Zupreem, lafeber and Kaytee at low prices. Special offers on Harrisons bird foods and much more. All our parrot and bird foods are stocked in our temperature controlled warehouse for...

www.scarlettsparrotessentials.co.uk

Complete Food And Pellets For Parrots And Pet Birds

Complete food and pellets, terrific selection of complete Parrot foods from leading brands in stock and available for fast despatch across the UK and Europe

www.northernparrots.com

Complete Parrot Pellets Food Parrots and Pet Birds

Complete parrot pellets food from all major brands. Everything is in stock and dispatched immediately. We delivery to the UK and Europe.

www.parrotessentials.co.uk

Scarletts Parrot Essentials is the only one that stocks Roudybush. All of them stock Harrisons and Nutriberries.

You can have a read of @Mizzely's guide to pellets: Pellets for Parrots - basically you want one without added sweeteners and without artificial dyes and flavouring. You also need a complete pellet that contains D3 - we don't get enough sun for our birds to make it themselves.

 

[Nadine]

Hi! I also have Linnie’s. I feed mine an apple slice every second day. I remember when I was researching them I read that apples were a favourite. I find them to be a bit fussy when comes to food. My green one, Bandit, will eat all the greens and good stuff. My mauve one Smokey is very fussy, she loves corn, green peas,and pomegranate. I put a vitamin powder on the food to be sure they are getting what they need. Well,,I’m trying..lol. Bandit likes to throw food at me. Ha ha.they will not eat pellets, so I buy a good seed. They are even fussy about seed. Lol. I put D3 drops in their water.
I hope this helps,,good luck!