Feeding an Adult African Grey Baby Bird Formula When Adopted

[birdlover74]

HI - I am new to this forum and the african grey world and I have a question I need some experienced people to help me with. I've heard when adopting a second-hand adult african grey some people say you should feed it a pippette of baby bird formula to kind of take it back to when it was young so that if it's in that state of mind it will be easier for it to adjust and settle in with the new family. This would be doing this once a day for a few weeks. Is this true? Is this something anyone would recommend doing or recommend not doing? Please help me!!

 

[MonicaMc]

I've heard of it, but I wouldn't necessarily recommend doing it... as mates feed each other warm foods, and you don't want your parrot thinking of you as his/her mate.

I have done it before, however, it was with a mitred conure, and when I had adopted him, he still had a sensitive beak (damaged by a larger parrot, then went through two surgeries) and couldn't eat hard foods too well. After he managed to get strength back into his beak, I stopped feeding him formula. I can't say whether or not this had any effect on our bond as I was the only "thing" he recognized from his foster home where I stayed for a few days before bringing him home with me, and he wasn't comfortable with the change in environments. While at his foster home, he wanted nothing to do with me...

 

[antoinette]

Hi there

You mentioned
some people say you should feed it a pippette of baby bird formulakind of take it back to when it was young so that if it's in that state of mind it will be easier for it to adjust and settle in with the new family.

I honestly to not think it would kind of take the bird back to when it was young.

I have an African Grey Mishka, a male, almost 5 years old.
I still feed Mishka 20ml of formula each morning, with a syringe.
The reason being, he loves it, and it's healthy for him.
Another bonus is, if he ever requires med's, he would not be afraid of a syringe.

If the previous owner was feeding him formula, keep on with it. If not, rather not.
What was he previously been fed?
Remember the bird is in a strange environment, new guardian etc...... give him time to settle down.

Any question you may have, please just ask....