Bird pictures

[mishimouse]

Tiki - blue Pacific parrotlet.


Leo - normal grey cockatiel.


Molly - pearl cockatiel.

[Hamsters82]

Cute birds. Is Molly molting? She looks somewhat different from Leo.

[Die Fledermaus]

She looks younger, actually, but she is a different type of cockatiel.

My Heather, a normal grey tiel, flies around this room when she pleases. I enjoy it, and I have no immediate plans to clip her wings; I do miss her not climbing on my finger and shoulder, which she stopped doing when her feathers grew back.

Tiki is especially pretty.

[mishimouse]

Molly is a baby. She's only two months old. Leo is about seven or eight months old.

Tiki is the oldest of them all. Not to mention the loudest and probably the meanest, despite the fact that she's very tame. She doesn't understand stepping up yet like the cockatiels do. Parrotlets do the same thing as Amazons and larger parrots except they don't hold food with their hands. She's a good bird; they all are.

[Die Fledermaus]

Ah! I thought she looked young.

The parrotlets I play with in the pet store are all charming.

[mishimouse]

She's not a mean bird at all but she has a temper and an attitude and it shows a lot more than it does with the cockatiels when she gets upset.

I have three birds to cut up fresh food for which I'm about to do in a few minutes. They love it; it's definitely Tiki's favorite time of the day.

[Die Fledermaus]

I like the fact that they all have dfferent personalities. My Heather was not being sold at the pet store as she was so nervous, so I got her (for only $40, which was 35 less than the others and even they were relatively cheap compared to other stores). It was very rewarding to eventually have her trust me.

OK, "fresh food". I keep trying to wean all of them off mix; pellets are better but those artificial colors are worrisome, and they are loathe to eat it. So what fresh foods do you find work best, especially for a tiel or keet?

[mishimouse]

Leo is from a local bird store. Molly and Tiki came from the same breeder.

Pellets are not nessecarily better. Some will consider them to be healthy but I feed all of my birds a mix of Roudybush pellets and seed - Tiki gets more seed than pellets because a pelleted diet isn't as healthy for a mutation. As for treats and fresh food, I give them all sliced carrots, celery, green beans, corn, peas, tomato, lemon/orange, broccoli, bird bread, Cheerios, and some apple every night. They love it.

[Die Fledermaus]

If you feed a mix, don't they ignore the pellets and go exclusively for the seed?

I will make a note right now into a .doc of those foods. I am surprised at green beans. "Bird bread" is sold in stores?

Thanks for the info.

Oh yea, what about protein - little bits of chicken or what?

[mishimouse]

Molly was raised on pellets. We mixed seed in with her food and she actually eats the pellets before she touches the seed. Tiki used to be a seed diet until her previous owners managed to get her onto a pelleted one. Like I said, I started to mix seed in with it and she devoured it all - she loves food and isn't exclusive to anything. Leo has always been on a seed diet and we just recently started to mix pellets into his food - both Pretty Bird and Roudybush. We don't know if he's really eating the pellets or not, but he eats everything in his bowl. We're not really expecting him to like the pellets since he hadn't been on them before but we're still trying to see if he'll eat them. If you talk to an avian vet, they'll probably tell you to only feed pellets to your birds yet you have breeders with beautiful, healthy, and gorgeous birds who are on seed diets and eat fresh foods every day. I think that variety helps a lot - that they're overall happier with a lot of different things to try and experiment with.

I bought bird bread from a local bird store. They were selling it for a fundraiser kind of thing. If you can't find any in stores, it's easy to make it yourself. This is a recipe that I found on another site but you can modify it to however you would want.

1 cup of plain yellow corn meal
1 teaspoon of baking powder
1 egg
1/2 cup of apple sauce
1/2 cup of apple juice
1/2 cup of peas, broccoli etc
1/3 cup of grated carrot
1/3 cup of cooked white or brown rice
1/3 cup of pellets or seeds

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Mix above ingredients well and spread in pan. Bake for 35 minutes.

I know that the kind I've been feeding my birds has nuts, chili peppers, and bananas in it. Put anything that you think would interest your bird into it. My birds get protein from the nuts they eat and I've never given meat to them.

[Die Fledermaus]

Thanks for all the info.

The tricky part with my tiel, and the others, is being able to tell at what point they are eating the pellets; right now, I have eaten seeds (husks) about, bits of mix and various birdie treats, and two types of Zupreme for tiels (and versions for my keets and finches). Being all mixed it's hard to know how much if any pellets were eaten. I assume my only choice is clean everything leaving nothing around, put down mostly pellets and maybe a little mix - and see what gets eaten. Same with fruits and veggies. I suppose we are near the point where I'll have to cut out all mix.

I will look for those brands when the Zupreme runs out.

Birdie bread: looked good even for me until I saw the seeds. Got microwave instructions? I have no oven.

[mishimouse]

Couldn't find a recipe for bird bread that you could put in the microwave but I'm sure that if you really wanted it for your birds, it's sold already made somewhere. I picked mine up from a bird store and I'm sure other places will have it too.

If you can't do the bird bread, any amount of fresh vegetables and fruits will be healthy and beneficial to your bird.

[Die Fledermaus]

I will look for bird bread.

I will offer them bits of fruits, veggies. I just hope they eat it. Persistenxce and patience for me!

[geisha]

those are very beautiful birds