Need help with baby Galah

[amused1]

Hi

I'm new to this forum and was hoping to get help here.

I bought a baby handraised galah few days ago, and the breeder said that it was 7 weeks old. i have attached a picture for you to see and roughly estimate how old it is. the breeder said it will wean in a week, and my baby is indeed picking at seeds but not getting the hang of cracking them.

i am handfeeding him at the moment, about 4 times a day, and i find that his crop empties fairly quickly and i dont know if thats good or bad.

i wanted a fully weaned baby, but the breeder only had those babies. im scared of doing anything wrong because i dont have much experience. he sometimes only takes 5 ml of food before he refuses to take anymore. i did some research and apparently they reach an age where they reduce eating to get ready to fly. hes flapping his wings as well so im sure thats a good sign.

any help would be appreciated. thanks

[avinet]

Hi, and welcome to the Forum. Hope you enjoy your stay here.

7 to 8 weeks looks about right from your photo - and I normally expect them to wean around 10 to 11 weeks. When I was hand rearing them I never sold them before 12 weeks old.

Only taking a small amount of food at some feeds is pretty normal - some they will take lots and other feeds they are more interested in looking around, flapping wings, and thinking about that first scary flight. Make sure any windows or mirrors are covered - he will not know about glass and could hit a window hard enough to seriously hurt himself if nothing is covering it. They will learn about windows, but until he does, don't take a chance.

I assume you have him in a cage? If not then get him into a cage immediately. Have seed, or better still, pellets, in the cage as well as fresh veggies and fruit, and water, he will naturally experiment with trying various foods, and start weaning away from hand rearing mix.

At his age I would only be feeding 3 times a day, and when he is flying I would reduce to two feeds - morning and evening. After about a week and once he is eating some food in his cage then cut it down to just an evening feed, and pretty soon he should lose interest in that feed as well.

I mentioned pellets above - Galahs are very prone to obesity and problems from a seed intensive diet - issues such as fatty liver disease and fatty tumours can be a real problem for Galahs fed a seed based diet due to the high fat content of most seed mixes. If you are going to use seed rather than pellets then buy a budgie mix and feed that. Reserve sunflower for use as a reward for positive reinforcement training.

There was a recent thread bout a Galah and fatty liver disease at aussiebirds.proboards.com/index.cgi?board=Cockatoos&action=display&thread=11364

Your baby looks to be in good condition, that nice alert happy look that a young healthy Galah gets. Are you by any chance in WA - he looks like a Western Australia subspecies of Galah - they make the best pets, lovely nature!

cheers,

Mike

[amused1]

Oct 28, 2012 10:56:31 GMT 10 avinet said:

Hi, and welcome to the Forum. Hope you enjoy your stay here.

7 to 8 weeks looks about right from your photo - and I normally expect them to wean around 10 to 11 weeks. When I was hand rearing them I never sold them before 12 weeks old.

Only taking a small amount of food at some feeds is pretty normal - some they will take lots and other feeds they are more interested in looking around, flapping wings, and thinking about that first scary flight. Make sure any windows or mirrors are covered - he will not know about glass and could hit a window hard enough to seriously hurt himself if nothing is covering it. They will learn about windows, but until he does, don't take a chance.

I assume you have him in a cage? If not then get him into a cage immediately. Have seed, or better still, pellets, in the cage as well as fresh veggies and fruit, and water, he will naturally experiment with trying various foods, and start weaning away from hand rearing mix.

At his age I would only be feeding 3 times a day, and when he is flying I would reduce to two feeds - morning and evening. After about a week and once he is eating some food in his cage then cut it down to just an evening feed, and pretty soon he should lose interest in that feed as well.

I mentioned pellets above - Galahs are very prone to obesity and problems from a seed intensive diet - issues such as fatty liver disease and fatty tumours can be a real problem for Galahs fed a seed based diet due to the high fat content of most seed mixes. If you are going to use seed rather than pellets then buy a budgie mix and feed that. Reserve sunflower for use as a reward for positive reinforcement training.

There was a recent thread bout a Galah and fatty liver disease at aussiebirds.proboards.com/index.cgi?board=Cockatoos&action=display&thread=11364

Your baby looks to be in good condition, that nice alert happy look that a young healthy Galah gets. Are you by any chance in WA - he looks like a Western Australia subspecies of Galah - they make the best pets, lovely nature!

cheers,

Mike

thank you so much for getting back to me. yea that was the plan, but he sold it to me early, and i didnt know until he dropped it off. i was suprised it was so small, but hes grown a lot in the last few days. they grow pretty quickly.

hes not currently in a cage, i've put him in a large open box where he can move around, i've put seeds and water and he does pick at them but doesnt crack. he cant perch and is a bit unstable on his feet, i got worried about putting him in a cage though, i thought he was too young. but i'll move him in today.

yea i was on 3 times daily, but sometimes he doesnt take a lot in one feeding and gets hungry after 2 hours or so, so i feed him again when he starts making the sound associated with food.

hopefully i'll get him on a pellet diet, but i want him to eat more fruits and veges as well, so im introducing corn and apple, and he seems to like picking at them because they are soft.

i cant wait till hes strong and weaned, im afraid to handle him because hes so soft and unstable. but hes absolutely adorable. i actually live in sydney. but his pink colour is pretty dark, a very deep pink.

also the breeder said he was feeding it eggs and biscuits mixed with chick starter as a formula. is that alright if i continue with this? i did some research and these product seem to have all the vitamins and minerals, and also some people said that they lost some of their young when they used the commercial brand formulas so im afraid to use that.

any help with what i should feed him would be great.

thanks again

[avinet]

I used to move them into a cage fairly early - maybe around 6 to 7 weeks, but it would not be a full sized high cage but instead I used what we call an exercise cage - around 60cm x 45cm x 45cm or a bit bigger. Big enough for them to move around, see what is happening around them and socialize, and with a low perch they could get used to perching on without the risk of a bad fall and hurting themselves. Baby Galahs can be a bit clumsy at first!

I will include a photo of the kind of cage - might not have a Galah in it - can't remember if I have a Galah photo or not but you will get the idea.

I guess for feeding him you should continue with what he is used to but an egg & biscuit plus chick starter mix is not a good diet to raise a baby parrot on. Egg & Biscuit mixes are variable ranging from the useless to moderately good while chick starter is exactly that - designed for chickens and not parrots.

Some commercial mixes are also not that good either, but if you get hand rearing mix from the major brand names - Roudybush, Pretty Bird, Kaytee, Vetafarm or Passwell, then you will have a good product. I am currently using Vetafarm's Neocare product and it is perfectly adequate. If hand raisers lost babies while using products from these companies then it wasn't due to the mix but their own mistakes. And I might add I have hand raised literally thousands of babies, from over 30 different species.

cheers,

Mike


Photo
Alexandrines, Sun Conures and Cockatiel in weaning cage - I cut some aviary wire (12.5mm mesh) to size to sit on the bottom of the cage to give the babies a better grip, and initially will place newspaper over part of the bottom while they get used to being in a cage. Low perches mean the babies won't be hurt if they lose balance. Normally water, seed and/or pellets, and veggies plus fruit will all have dishes in the cage. This particular cage is 60 x 50 x 50 cm and has a lovely big hinged door, it was a Wenn Yang cage - I believe no longer imported unfortunately. Similar ones, without the big hinged door, but instead a large lifting door, usually sold as exercise cages, are available - such as petandgarden.com.au/extra-wide-exercise-bird-cage-ts-2473.html