Helping Your New Pet Bird Adjust To Your Home

Adopting a pet bird can be exciting for you, but it can be stressful for your new pet bird, especially if he has been a hand fed baby. Imagine being taken from the only environment you’ve ever known and put in some strange place with a bunch of strangers. Sounds stressful, huh? Luckily there are some things you can do to help your new baby bird adjust.

Knowing that your new bird was coming, you should already have his cage and accessories waiting and ready. Be sure to put the cage in an area that does not get too much traffic or have a lot going on. You don’t want him to be isolated and away from the family, but you also don’t want a lot of stuff going on around him that can startle and confuse him. Choose an area that he can interact with the family but won’t be startled by sudden movements or loud noises.

Take your bird to an avian veterinarian to make sure he is healthy and get him on a schedule for checkups. The bet will check for contagious diseases, bacterial infections and worms. If you have purchases the bird from a reputable breeder all this may have been done - find out what veterinarian your breeder used and check to be sure your bird is in tip top shape (you might even continue using this vet if you don’t already have one of your own).

Your pet bird can be a bit nervous the first few days and if he doesn’t start eating after a day or so, offer him some spray millet. This stuff is like dessert for birds and this will surely tempt him. If your bird is a newly weaned baby and he keeps making a squalling noise, he may require some hand feeding for a few days.

Pay attention to your new bird, but don’t overwhelm him. Spend no more than ten minutes a time with him. You might want to leave him in the cage for the first few weeks, but if you let him out and he continually flies away and you end up chasing him, put him back in the cage until he calms down. The constant chasing is stressful for birds.

Having a pet bird can be a great experience, just be sure you acclimate him to your home and family properly and you’ll have a new friend that will give you joy for many years.

New Pet Bird Food

On the surface it looks like feeding a bird is easy, just fill their bowl up with seeds, right? Actually, there are many different types of bird food and some of them might even surprise you. Your bird will be much healthier and live longer if he is fed the proper diet and that means feeding him other foods along with his seed.

Years ago, pet birds dined predominately on bird seed, but over time bird lovers have realized that a diet of only seed is not healthy. It’s still OK to give your bird seed, but you must also supplement his diet with other foods. Some seeds are better for your pet bird then others - for example millet and safflower are preferable over sunflower but if you do feed him seeds, make sure that they don’t comprise more than 30% of his diet.

For parrots, you might consider feeding them brown rice and beans. I know it sounds like something you might have on Friday night, but your bird might like to join you if you do. However, keep in mind that this can be a bit messy and don’t leave the food in the cage for more than an hour as it will go bad.

Today, there are pellets that are specially formulated to feed pet birds. These pellets are made to have all the nutrients that your pet needs to be healthy and theoretically could be the perfect bird food, but doesn’t that sound boring? Plus the pellets are processed and no substitute for what a bird might eat in the wild. Just like too much processed food isn’t good for us, it isn’t good for our pets either.

The food you can feed your pet is probably a mixture of everything. Some seeds, some pellets, some fruits, some vegetables. Put a few food cups in the cage so that the fruit goop doesn’t get on the seeds and spoil them. Add in some nuts, beans and brown rice and your bird will have a buffet of food to choose from! Remember, though when adding the fruit, rice, beans and vegetables that you should remove them after an hour so that they don’t spoil.

Getting nutritious bird food for your bird might sound like a lot of work but it doesn’t have to be. In fact, many people feed their birds just what they are eating! Simply prepare your supper and make an extra plate for the bird. Just remember that some “human” foods can make your bird sick or even kill him so never feed your bird junk food, chocolate, avocado, apple seeds, salt, mushrooms, onions, persimmons or anything with alcohol or caffeine.

Your New Bird Comes Home

Adopting a pet bird can be exciting for you, but it can be stressful for the bird especially if he is a hand fed baby. Imagine being taken from the only environment you’ve ever known and put in some strange place with a bunch of strangers. Sound stressful, huh? Luckily there are some things you can do to help your new baby bird adjust.

Knowing that your new bird was coming, you should already have his cage and accessories waiting and ready. Be sure to put the cage in an area that does not get too much traffic or have a lot going on. You don’t want him to be isolated and away from the family, but you also don’t want a lot of stuff going on around him that can startle and confuse him. Choose an area that he can interact with the family but won’t be startled by sudden movements or loud noises.

Take your bird to an avian veterinarian to make sure he is healthy and get him on a schedule for checkups. The bet will check for contagious diseases, bacterial infections and worms. If you have purchases the bird from a reputable breeder all this may have been done - find out what veterinarian your breeder used and check to be sure your bird is in tip top shape (you might even continue using this vet if you don’t already have one of your own).

Your pet bird can be a bit nervous the first few days and if he doesn’t start eating after a day or so, offer him some spray millet. This stuff is like dessert for birds and this will surely tempt him. If your bird is a newly weaned baby and he keeps making a squalling noise, he may require some hand feeding for a few days.

Pay attention to your new bird, but don’t overwhelm him. Spend no more than ten minutes a time with him. You might want to leave him in the cage for the first few weeks, but if you let him out and he continually flies away and you end up chasing him, put him back in the cage until he calms down. The constant chasing is stressful for birds.

Having a pet bird can be a great experience, just be sure you acclimate him to your home and family properly and you’ll have a new friend that will give you joy for many year

The Right Bird Cage

One of the most important things you need for your pet bird is a bird cage. The right cage will be your birds castle and help him to stay safe, healthy and feel secure. Choosing the right one can be a challenge, however as there are many different styles and sizes of cages.

The first thing you must consider is the type of bird that you will be adopting. Long tailed birds like parakeets and cockatiels will do best with a long cage in order for him to get the proper exercise. It’s ideal if your bird can fly from one side of the cage to the other. Lovebirds and some parrots like the Senegal parrot or any bird that is more stocky in body will get their exercise by climbing around in the cage so these types of birds prefer a cage that is taller than it is wide.

If you are getting a baby bird, you might consider starting off with a smaller cage and then having a larger one ready for when your bird “grows up”. The reason for this is that a small baby bird might feel lost inside a big cage and might have trouble finding his food and water dishes especially if he is a hand weaned baby used to special attention. Having said that, however, you do want to buy the largest cage you can for when your bird is an adult.

One thing that is critical in a bird cage is the spacing between the bars of the cage. Obviously, you wouldn’t want a cage with bars that the bird could fit between! A wire mesh cage should have holes smaller than the size of your birds head. Some birds, like cockatiels, will stick their head through one hole and then stretch their neck in a U shape and stick their head into a different hole instead of simply pulling it back out of the hole they stuck it in in the first place! Obviously you don’t want this to happen so you must consider size when buying these types of cages.

Along with size and bar spacing you want to look at the cage tray. You will be pulling this out to clean the cage so you want to make sure this will be easy and that there is something to prevent the bird from escaping through the bottom. Also, make sure the tray is deep enough - all the debris from your birds food like seed shells and discarded fruit will be down there and you want to be sure it will all come out with the tray. Speaking of which, birds can be pretty messy and just scatter their seed debris wherever they want so you want to be sure your cage can also be fitted with an apron or base of some sort to stop seeds from scattering on the floor.

The last thing you need to consider in a bird cage is the perches and cups. You can always buy different perches but you want to make sure you can situate them at different levels and that it will take perches wide enough for the feet of the type of bird you are buying. Be sure the food and water cups are easy to get to without opening the cage (they usually have their own little doors you can slide open). If the cage is for a large parrot, you might want to make sure the cups bolt right to the cage as these big guys are known to toss their dishes around when they can.