Ask An Expert: E.B. Cravens

Answered by E.B. Cravens:

Dear Bettina, The short answer to your question is we would offer African greys a nesting box out of thick wood (not metal or plastic!) which was 8 inches by 10 inches interior floor size, 30 inches tall, 4 to 5 inch round opening at the top under a large overhanging roof board. It needs to be facing a private area so the hen and cock do not always have to be looking out of their box and seeing other greys interested. Food and water should be near at hand so the pair does not have to compete for nourishment or choose to eat and drink less because they do not want to leave their egg clutch and venture far.

Inside we place coarse wood chips (not sawdust) and a few chunks of bark and rotting log material for them to chew up, also a small green bough of eucalyptus, rosemary, etc. to deter bugs. Depth of chips is four inches to start, then they add to it usually by chewing.

The longer answer to your question would be "why are you breeding African greys" at all. As can be seen from your eight rescue Greys, there are so very many unwanted parrots of all kinds out there, and sometimes it seems best not to bring more babies into the world where good 'forever' homes are increasingly hard to find...

Do you have a plan for the chicks you might get? Is the space they are kept in large enough for three, four, six or more extra Greys? Are you making a decision to breed to sell or adopt out? How old are you and your family, and is everyone committed to long term care for the young parrots?

Now, I am not trying to be negative here. There are some fine ethical reasons for permitting a pair of African greys that wish to become sexual and have a family, go ahead and do so. But it can become complicated, certainly in a colony situation where all birds are not firmly bonded and paired up. In the wilds we know that greys nest in "communal" types of situations--but captive parrots can have issues about territory and baby noises coming from a box and extra food treats (pairs with babies being fed need four or five times the food that everyone else gets and it often needs to be special, i.e. premium greens, extra nuts and cooked beans and sprouted pulses, corn on the cob, pomegranate and fig seeds, soft food, etc.) Your situation may make it hard to provide extra nourishment to the pairs setting on eggs and feeding chicks without making other birds jealous or assertive.

There are also the serious questions of double and triple clutching breeding parrots. It is early in the season still. Do you plan to let the parents do the fledging and weaning, or take away babies for human feedings?

Anyway, I applaud your concern and the fact that you were willing to take on the care of eight needy, unwanted grey parrots. Just think carefully and proceed slowly with this next phase and realize there are many options, like hard boiling or addling the eggs and giving your pairs a chance to copulate and interfeed and set on eggs to term in a peaceful family pair way--without actually producing more captive Greys.

Good luck to you,
With aloha, EB Cravens

Answered by E.B. Cravens:

Dear Rodney, It has been my experience that many African parrots will not bathe in their water dish and if not trained young, can be afraid of hoses or spray bottles. Your lettuce leaves attempt was on the right track, but a more positive way to bring out your Grey's instincts would be to get a good sized, thick leafy bough of some soft-leaved tree--not oak for example, but more elm or poplar or plum. When she is accustomed to perching in the branches or being near them on her perch, get a spray bottle filled with warm water and spray the leaves near her but not on her. Concentrate on feet level and spraying a VERY LIGHT mist up in the air to sprinkle down on the leaves and a bit on her head and back. Make imitations of her most joyous sounds while you are doing it and go about it very patiently. If she backs off, stop getting her misted and just do the leaves until they are soaked. Then go away and let her react. This procedure has coaxed many of my timid bathers to begin romping through the wet leaves on their own.

If you take her into the shower, just put her up on a wet stable towel on the shower curtain pole and let her watch you and soak in the damp warm air and the humidity--even that is good for her. She may eventually become comfortable enough that you could gently splash her a bit and get her used to water as nothing to fear. Again choose a habitual joy "shower noise" to utter to show this is supposed to be fun!

Good luck and keep us posted on her progress.
EB

Answered by E.B. Cravens:

Dear Lee, First of all congratulations for allowing your parrots to retain their wing feathers and fly around!
 
More and more conscientious pet bird owners are discovering the joy (and convenience) of having flighted psittacines in the home.
 
It is usual that the larger the parrot, the more it will have to work and hence tire when flying inside a house. This explains why the Jardine's pants more strongly than the Senegal after flight. Just maneuvering indoors is much more difficult for a larger bird. In an outside or wild situation, the Jardine's would be flapping briskly and flying very long distances in order to keep fit. This is not possible indoors.
 
The way I have solved this problem with many of my flighted indoor pets is to trim the first two narrow strong ribbed primary flight feathers at the front of the wing. This effectively cuts down the flight capacity for speed by about 15% depending upon species and athleticism of the parrot; but it does not seriously affect maneuverability. The pet will then begin to flap more exuberantly to accomplish the same flight skills it is used to and will begin getting stronger and making up the 15% difference. The choice can then be made whether to take a third feather or part of the third outermost feather--something we do not always do.
 
Pay particular attention to the speed and noise of your Jardine's flight as that will tell you how much effort he or she is expending. As Jardine's are stocky psittacines, they do need more primaries to get around easily--than say a cockatiel or conure. So it would be most prudent to trim only one of the first two feathers, on both wings the same of course, at a time; then wait a week and do the second.
 
Also it would be well to take the time to examine your feeding regimen. Most of us overfeed our parrots and keep them 5-10% overweight all the time--especially in the overheating of winter homes. Cut back the fat and heavy carbs in a few food items and replace it with sprouted pulses, fruit pips like pomegranate, melon, papaya, passion fruit, fig, etc. and your bird will trim down accordingly.
 
Good luck.
Aloha, EB

Answered by E.B. Cravens:

Dear ??? (you did not give your name...):
I searched my sources and the internet and could not find any reference to weight charts for fledgling DuCorps Cockatoo chicks of six months age. Therefore, as I am in no way a cockatoo expert, I will offer what I can about your new fledgling parrot.

The weight drop that you describe is less than 8%. If the cockatoo baby is the same as many I have known, then he or she will be eating very well at the home breeder aviary and will not necessarily lose the amount of weight considered normal and/or acceptable for a bird of that age and species. Much has to do with whether it is a flighted fledgling or whether the wings have been trimmed, thus keeping it rather chunky and overweight up until the time it moves to a new home and leaves behind many of its baby eating tendencies....that is when it might slim down.

The history of this cockatoo is essential to your knowing whether it weaned "fat" or weaned "lean" and active--hence the fledging routine, amount of calories it was being fed, whether it rejected the syringe hand-feeding process or was slowly moved onto a finger-food warm mush diet dispensing with the syringe entirely, and the like. If you choose to reintroduce warm soft food and you are not syringe competent, then the best way is to offer hot soaked warm wheat bread, adult avian pellets, tofu, oatmeal or the like which are all just as good as hand-feeding formula for a parrot of this age.

Be aware that some needy cockatoos are manipulative and WANT their keepers to revert to baby feeding foods, especially if unsure of new life situations..

If your veterinarian recommends that you do an x-ray to ascertain that there is no consumed foreign body in the digestive tract that could be hampering assimilation of nourishment or passage of foodstuffs--it would be foolish of you--or me with one of my birds for that matter--to opt out of such a safety precautionary and simple med procedure. This is one of the first things I like to authorize if there is confusion about what is going on inside a bird. Fledglings DO imbibe odd things from wood chips to cloth fragments to metal casings. Unless you suspect your vet of being untrustworthy, it is not
appropriate to suggest that he or she has money on the mind when proposing a diagnostic procedure...

Now, you did state that you worried about this weight loss being stress related, but I do not know what stress that would be. A new pet entering a home should have as much or more nourishment, affection, privacy, sleep time, stimuli, comfort and familiar dishes, treats, toys, etc. as it had in it's previous location. There will be many changes, to be sure, but a well-raised youngster is both ready for new adventures, and strong enough to make changes in its lifestyle without suffering malnutrition or depression....

So, as I see it, there are two options. One is to call the breeder or pet source of the fledgling bird and arrange to have it returned to that person for stabilization and observance--something we have had to do in the past with (not coincidentally) Goffin's cockatoos; so that the bird can re-adapt, begin eating well of all types of things again, and be moved into your home a bit more carefully when it is totally prepared...

The second is to realize that it is not unusual for parrots that are not adept fliers to lose 15% or more of their weight mass upon fledging and moving to new homes. Monitor the fledgling carefully; make sure that it eats well things like millet spray, cooked lentils, buckwheat, mung beans and green stems and twigs, crumbled walnuts, canary seed, and anything it really takes to as a youngster; realize that cockatoos are not such big eaters and your new pet will most likely lose some weight, then gain it back as muscle when it begins flying around its new home; and step back a little bit without worry that this bird if well brought up from a breeder that you trust, will adapt and be fine in the long run. (We all worry about our new additions to the flock, I might add!!).

Weight loss with accompanied lethargy, emotional neediness, poor digestion or suspect excrement are one thing. Just a bit of fasting and new-home weight drop are something else and can be interpreted safely by the observant owner...Good luck. I wish I had known the name of your DuCorps to refer to in this message.

With aloha, EB

Answered by E.B. Cravens:

Dear Dot,

It is not at all unusual for amazon parrots, especially if they are former wild-trapped ones, to prefer perching outside rather than being under shelter. Sheltered roofs can be a perceived "trap" for many psittacine species.

If you catch the two or four elderly ones and place them inside for the winter, they will most likely live longer. You also could give them a late afternoon seed or nut feeding inside and coax them to come in before sunset, then lock them in. If your indoor arrangement does not provide a lock, then it is time to put one on. Parrots even on the verge of dying will retain
their sleeping habits to the detriment of their well being.

I do not know why your vet has said to stop hand-feeding one bird who is getting thin, but perhaps he does not want to stress it more---sometimes it is not necessary to use a syringe and hold the bird, but instead one can just provide soaked warm sprouted wheat bread and extruded adult pellets and tofu and the like in a small cup, which the bird will then gulp like a baby would. Often a bird with a weak liver will lose weight because it is having real difficulty digesting the foods being offered. Easily digestible foods will be accepted more readily, certainly those that do not require crunching and are already in wet, warm form--a low, low fat diet is best .

I would be feeding this bird and keeping it and its mate in my house on a heating pad so that it would either recover slowly or would pass away in the most comfortable, gentle way possible. If you do hand feed it, do not use commercial baby formula as most of those are for growing birds and have far too much fat in them for a bird with liver disease. Also I would be giving that bird milk thistle extract in its water and on its wet food at least three times a week for liver health.

Good luck and my prayers are with these four old amazons. They have suffered a lot due to humans and deserve to be as comfortable as possible now.

Thank you for rescuing them.
With aloha, EB

Answered by E.B. Cravens:

Dear Jeffrey, As your budgerigars are still quite young, it should not be too difficult to accomplish their first flying training.

Once their flight feathers are all grown out, you can encourage them to begin flapping on your finger or on a stick by raising and lowering the stick to get them to begin feeling their wing downbeats supporting their body weight.

Flight training is all about landing skills, so you need to teach them to land competently. This we accomplish on the master bed where the bird can be encouraged to fly six or eight inches at first down to the soft surface--learning through repetition to brake with its wings, put out its feet and look downward to a feet-first landing. Make sure you do not allow them to over-flap and fly a long distance to crash to the floor. Such mistakes ruin their progress and make them fearful of bumps and bruises.

From there you can progress to getting them to take longer two, three, four-foot flights to build up confidence on the soft surface. Once they get that down, a folded bath towel on top of their cage or the couch back, etc. can be another landing site.

Flying to a perch can take place a bit later as it is a more precise skill and can involve a harder landing on the feet and leg muscles.

You will know when they are flying better because most parrots begin to increase their speed. Make sure they learn to fly down, turn left and right and return, and of course are able to adjust and fly after a bath when still wet. Feel free to contact me with any specific questions about your pets' fledging.
Cheers, EB

Answered by E.B. Cravens:

Dear Sara, I am by no means a palm expert!

(Perhaps if there is one who reads this site, he or she might make themselves available to be our full palm resource:):))

As I understand it both those palms and most all the true palms are safe for parrots.

You might want to use a pruning shears to keep the spines on the date palm trimmed to a non-piercing level....

Cheers, EB

Answered by E.B. Cravens:

Dear S. Mylam: What you refer to by the common name 'Sago' Palm is in fact not a true palm at all (common greenhouse names can be confusing!) but is a member of the cycad family and related to the gymnosperms like ginkgo and the pines.

You are correct that this plant is not safe for livestock, pets, or humans and should not be in your planted aviary.

Though 'sago' palms produce edible starch, their pith must be processed to remove toxins before being safe to consume.

I would recommend replacing it with a small clumping bamboo, maybe a cluster palm like 'areca', or perhaps a mulberry tree so your birds could eat the fruits.

Cheers, EB