Posted January 8, 200817 yr Hi all, I'm new here We have an American budgie who was hatched on September 25th which makes him 15 weeks old tomorrow and he is STILL on two handfeedings/day by spoon. This is the longest ANY budgie in my care has EVER taken and I'm just stumped. We always wean onto Zupreem Avian Maintenance Natural Diet and introduce veggies and fruit after they're weaned from the formula. We have not seen this baby drinking any water by himself yet and it appears he will only eat the pellets when it's crumbled into tiny bits. He's now being given the canary/finch size pellets but now wants it even smaller than that. His morning feed was eliminated a few weeks ago with horrible results. He didn't eat and looked unwell so he's been back on two feedings/day and another attempt was made today with the same results. He does great on two feedings/day but as soon as we cut the morning feed, he crashes. We've had some budgies take 12-13 weeks but this is a bit much. Should we be trying more variety on this baby? How else can we encourage him to eat on his own? He's been with two sets of budgies that have been handraised, weaned and gone and I was hoping he'd learn from them but nope!! what to do? thank you in advance.
January 8, 200817 yr Have you tried sprinkling millet on the floor of his cage and removing the perches? i find this the easiest way to get them to begin the weaning onto seed process as because there's nowhere else for them to sit they get bored on the floor and start to pick... i often dont find my birds to drink water either so i provide fresh lettuce on the cage floor with the millet seeds which they pick at also... with the birds being hand tamed i find placing a single millet seed in their mouth also helpful in teaching them as they start to gain confidence and play around with it and chew it slowly learning to husk it.... best of luck with this one he sounds like a hard shell to crack!
January 8, 200817 yr Try feeding fresh seeding grasses that are still green , they will be soft and easy for him to eat , or you can soak a millet spray and try him with that it will also be soft for him , maybe you can soak it or dip it in his Formula this might get him to start eating . Goodluck and welcome to the forum. :rip:
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