Weaning off of hand feeding powder

[Spiro]

It's been a week and a half now that Keiko is home with us. On the advice of our breeder she recommended to continue the Tropican hand feed powder twice a day. Once in the morning and once at night . My question is when would this stop? The bird is now almost 3 and a half months old. Keiko is eating fruits and veggies every day as well as her food bowl which has Tropican pellets in it, although he goes to the bowl very scarcely . Not sure about water intake either, however his droppings have everything in common of good food intake. Our breeder says the bird will just slowly forget about the powder formula sooner or later. What do you guys think ? Any advice on this subject would be appreciated , thanks

 

[wrench13]

Its called self weaing, just keep offering the formula until he takes less and less of it, and eats more and more pellets and fresh veggies and fruit. I offer Salty formula like once every month or 2 , and he will take a few mouth fulls, ut then goes for his regular food bowl. And he is 2-1/2 yrs old. Its just a natural progression that is different with each bird. Just make sure the folrmula is the right temperature, around 102 degrees F When we got Salty, he was on 2 feedings a day and just starting to like other stuff, and took like 2 months until he would take a ite of formula and the rest was chop and pellets.

 

[Spiro]

Thanks for the info. He’s a pretty smart bird and well let’s say that with distraction all works ! We made a bowl of grains cooked of course put it in the cage and he ate and well now we give the hand feed formula once a day in the evening .. it’s going good

 

[Squeekmouse]

Trust me, weaning him with that formula is a win-win. You get to bond with him and he gets to bond with you in such a loving, tender, caring situation. Eventually he'll choose to eat more of the solid food and grow less interested in the spoon fed goo, preferring just the loving, tender, caring part of it instead of the spoonful of goo.

Enjoy!!