Expert: Chrys Meatyard - 5/23/2006

Question
hi crys    i am currently trying to wean my baby lovebird. he has never had formula and i am currenly feeding him moistened egg and bisciut. he seems to be costantly hungry and whenever i get him out of his cage he wants to eat so i feed him but i dint no how much he should be eating. he is eating the food off my fingers (nibbling it off) but he would eat the whole jar. so my first q is - how much should a 40g 4-5 weekold love bird be eating at one time and my second one is ho much weight should he be putting on each day?    needing help    sasha    ps how often should i be feeding him? (he can eat off the bottom of his cage)

Answer
Hi, Sasha.  Thanks for posting.

At 4-5 weeks of age, your baby lovebird should be on baby parrot handfeeding formula and you should be handfeeding s/he with a handfeeding syringe.  It doesn't sound like your lovebird is getting enough food to eat.  It's great that you are feeding s/he moistened egg and biscuit, but that's not enough in my opinion.  Also, those 2 ingredients aren't providing enough nutrition for your young bird.  

Your lovebird should be eating about 15-20 cc's of handfeeding formula at least 3 times per day (morning, noon, evening, if not at bedtime, too) if you are supplementing his/her feedings with the egg and biscuit.  If you are not feeding handfeeding formula, you need to provide this baby lovebird with as much nutritional food during the day as you can get in the baby.  In other words, this baby needs to have nutritonal food available to s/he all hours of the day.  If you are weaning s/he, you can reduce the amount of food offered by a little bit, but the bird has to be ready to be weaned before you should start this process.  If your lovebird isn't getting enough food as it is, I wouldn't start the weaning process yet.  I recommend you get him feed well for a week or so before even trying to wean.  Was this baby being fed by it's parents before you started feeding him/her?  If so, why did you remove the baby from it's parents?  I need more information about the situation in order to help further.  

Baby parrots gain weight at different rates depending on whether they are being fed by their parents or being handfed by a human, whether they are fledging, how much exercise they get, etc.  The trick is to keep them from losing weight.  Baby parrots will lose some weight as they wean and learn to fly, but this weight loss shouldn't be much.  Loss of weight is also a sign of illness, so you have to be able to determine why your parrot might be losing weight if it is (in other words, is s/he losing weight because of the weaning process or is the bird ill).

My website might provide you with other information you need to know if you want to visit:
http://www.angelfire.com/falcon/birdinfo/index/html

Come back if you need to.

Chrys