Hello!

[offthehookexotics]

Hi, everyone! My name is Desiree. Recently (November) my husband and I opened a pet store in Coraopolis, PA. My husband is quite the expert on reptiles and both marine and freshwater fish. I was given two baby green cheek conures to hand raise in the shop, and that was love at first sight! From there I began to hand raise baby parakeets rather successfully. I just bought a baby Congo African Grey, three baby conures, and two baby parrotlettes from a private breeder in the Eastern part of the state. I am reading everything that I can get my hands on that pertains to birds at all. I feed my birds a 50/50 mix of Zupreem hand feeding formula and Higgins InTune hand feeding formula. They also get access to loads of fresh fruits and veggies, oatmeal, low sugar cereal (like plain Cheerios) and almond milk, and the occasional bit of pizza crust .

I would like to learn from other members of this forum what I can do behavior wise to mold these babies into great pets. I haven't had any issues as of the current point in time, but I would like to know the best way to raise a baby bird so that it is well on it's way to being a well adjusted adult.

Can anyone help?

Thanks!

 

[RavensGryf]

Welcome Desiree. If I lived back east I'd visit your store! I used to be SO into fish tanks both saltwater and fresh!
You'll get lots of good advice on this forum. My suggestion would be to give those babies lots of love and hands on socialization. I think a lot of birds at pet shops (which sell other types of animals too), can tend to get a bit wild or skittish if they don't sell right away after being weaned, from lack of handling and socializing. That would be great to have the baby parrots who are old enough to perch, out on a play stand with toys and food and water cups, so they can get socialized with the customers. Also makes them more psychologically appealing to would be buyers (rather than just seeing birds in a cage). Good luck!

 

[MikeyTN]

Welcome to the forum!!! The main thing is socialization! As long as you socialize them properly from early on, there shouldn't be much issues other then the obvious ones with hormones once they mature, then that is up to each individual owner to train them properly from then on. So you can raise and train properly all you want, it's in that stage when they can change. So it wouldn't be a bad thing to tell each individual new owner about the possibility of issues down the road and how important it is for them to keep up with training even after they go home with them.

 

[antoinette]

Welcome to our awesome forum

 

[offthehookexotics]

Thanks for the advice, guys! I have both my husband and I as well as our kids handle the birds as often as time permits. We do have a playstand that we use, especially with the Jenday conures, and they do work wonders for both the birds and the customers. Thanks again for the advice!!

 

[henpecked]

Hi, everyone! My name is Desiree. Recently (November) my husband and I opened a pet store in Coraopolis, PA. My husband is quite the expert on reptiles and both marine and freshwater fish. I was given two baby green cheek conures to hand raise in the shop, and that was love at first sight! From there I began to hand raise baby parakeets rather successfully. I just bought a baby Congo African Grey, three baby conures, and two baby parrotlettes from a private breeder in the Eastern part of the state. I am reading everything that I can get my hands on that pertains to birds at all. I feed my birds a 50/50 mix of Zupreem hand feeding formula and Higgins InTune hand feeding formula. They also get access to loads of fresh fruits and veggies, oatmeal, low sugar cereal (like plain Cheerios) and almond milk, and the occasional bit of pizza crust .

I would like to learn from other members of this forum what I can do behavior wise to mold these babies into great pets. I haven't had any issues as of the current point in time, but I would like to know the best way to raise a baby bird so that it is well on it's way to being a well adjusted adult.

Can anyone help?

Thanks!

Put it on a stand next to the cash register where everyone can interact with it. Change babies out every day or two.Carry them around the store. have different people feed them. Socialize,socialize,socialize. Expand their horizons. That's the single most important thing you can do to improve a companion parrot's life. I used to carry baby amazons around to different pet stores and leave them on consignment just to better socialize them. I'd leave them there for a week and if they didn't sell i'd carry a different one there. The babies that spend time in the pet stores where so much better adjusted when they went to their forever home. So many behavioral/social traits are established early in life.