Quaker parrot still eating formula

[EngineerGaming]

I have a Quaker parrot and he’s about 10-11 weeks old, and he’s still eating the baby bird formula, whenever he want food he bops his head up and down and flaps his wings and I feed him the formula, another problem is that we’re almost out of the formula he eats and my mom said she’s not gonna buy more. I just want to know how to get him to stop eating the formula and start eating his seeds, he doesn’t really eat the seeds but instead plays around with it. What should I do? Also his name is scout

 

[zERo]

I have a Quaker parrot and he’s about 10-11 weeks old, and he’s still eating the baby bird formula, whenever he want food he bops his head up and down and flaps his wings and I feed him the formula, another problem is that we’re almost out of the formula he eats and my mom said she’s not gonna buy more. I just want to know how to get him to stop eating the formula and start eating his seeds, he doesn’t really eat the seeds but instead plays around with it. What should I do? Also his name is scout

Well, ideally the baby bird should be allowed to eat formula until he doesn't want it any longer. You should really be trying to switch him onto pellets, seeds, and veggies, not just seeds.
Could you try and persuade your mom?
Depending on what brand you are using, some of them are as cheap as $10, the Higgins brand is anyways. Though other brand prices may vary.

 

[wrench13]

Right - he has to be able to decide for himself when to change to a solid diet. Offer seeds, nuts, veggies and pellets but DONT force him to wean - thats asking for problems later on. Trust us - his adulthood is going to be much more pleasanter for him , you, your mom, if he is allowed to self wean. Offer formula until he refuses it. And even then , he may backtrack and beg for it after he has weaned, it happens often.

 

[Cottonoid]

Like everyone said, forcing him to wean is really bad for him. There's also a possibility of him refusing to eat the seeds when you run out of formula and that can be really dangerous. Some birds will even starve and get really sick.

Most people recommend "abundance weaning", where you offer new food AND keep feeding formula, and it's just SO important to the physical and mental health of your parrot. Basically you start offering other food now along with the formula feeding. You could put out seeds and pellets all the time, and offer veggies a couple times a day, while you're still feeding formula. Eventually Scout will start trying the other food here and there, and then he'll stop eating formula on his own at some point.

An all seed diet isn't healthy for a Quaker, just like cereal all day every day wouldn't be healthy for you, but it's ok to have a little bit as part of a variety of food.

Welcome to the forum! Scout is a super cute name for a Quaker!

 

[Cottonoid]

This section of the forum has a lot of good posts on what to do when you have an unweaned baby parrot:

Breeding and Raising Parrots subforum

 

[EngineerGaming]

Like everyone said, forcing him to wean is really bad for him. There's also a possibility of him refusing to eat the seeds when you run out of formula and that can be really dangerous. Some birds will even starve and get really sick.

Most people recommend "abundance weaning", where you offer new food AND keep feeding formula, and it's just SO important to the physical and mental health of your parrot. Basically you start offering other food now along with the formula feeding. You could put out seeds and pellets all the time, and offer veggies a couple times a day, while you're still feeding formula. Eventually Scout will start trying the other food here and there, and then he'll stop eating formula on his own at some point.

An all seed diet isn't healthy for a Quaker, just like cereal all day every day wouldn't be healthy for you, but it's ok to have a little bit as part of a variety of food.

Welcome to the forum! Scout is a super cute name for a Quaker!

I’ve tried convincing my mom to buy more formula because I know he’s not ready to move onto seeds quite yet, both my mom and my dad say that he has to start eating seeds, but I tried to tell them that he still has to eat formula and they won’t listen

 

[Cottonoid]

I’ve tried convincing my mom to buy more formula because I know he’s not ready to move onto seeds quite yet, both my mom and my dad say that he has to start eating seeds, but I tried to tell them that he still has to eat formula and they won’t listen

I'm sorry

I'm trying to think of more ideas. Does Scout have a vet yet?

Does your family have a kitchen scale that measures in grams? If you do, you could start weighing him every day - in the morning after he does his morning poop but before he eats. Since he's a baby, we want him to be gaining a little weight every day so if he starts losing weight that's a sign he's not eating enough.

For my parrot when I was switching his food I wrote down how much his food weighed before he ate and how much after, so that I could tell if he was eating.

Maybe start offering seed now before you run out of formula. Maybe we'll get lucky and he'll try it.

This is probably very stressful for you and I think you're doing a great job learning what you can and advocating for Scout

 

[wrench13]

Heck dude, send me your email addy, I will PayPal you the cost of the formula. Geez, talk about being cheap, shame on them.

 

[EngineerGaming]

Heck dude, send me your email addy, I will PayPal you the cost of the formula. Geez, talk about being cheap, shame on them.

I’ve only got Apple Pay and I don’t use PayPal because I don’t have a card since I’m not old enough to get one yet

 

[Owlet]

I’ve only got Apple Pay and I don’t use PayPal because I don’t have a card since I’m not old enough to get one yet

Are you in the US? Do you have an amazon account? Maybe someone could give you an amazon giftcard and you could order some... I don't have the money right now (hopefully starting a new job soon... I have an interview on friday) but the people on this forum are beyond generous.

 

[EngineerGaming]

Are you in the US? Do you have an amazon account? Maybe someone could give you an amazon giftcard and you could order some... I don't have the money right now (hopefully starting a new job soon... I have an interview on friday) but the people on this forum are beyond generous.

Yup I’m in the US, I believe I can try to get someone to get me a gift card, and also the formula we use is Kaytee exact hand feeding. I saw that it was about 16.99