Tips on feeding a young IRN.

[janene]

Well I now have a little Blue IRN with my Alex Luger. Winchester (guns, I know right? - Married to a texan lol) is settling in quite well, although for the life of me he won't take formula. He was a little older than Luger was when i got him, he is around 5 weeks old. He does nibble on fruit and today I introduced some sprouted seed which I have seen him munching on throughout the day, but he just won't take the formula. I've never really had this issue before, as all birds I've raised have come around in the end and eaten fine, Lugar was hesitant first also but now is a real little pig at feed time. I've had the IRN for 3 - almost 4 days now and I hold concerns for his health if he doesn't eat. He is avairy bred so there is the shy and timidness factor that I do realise, so I put him in with Luger at feed time in a hope to have him copy, and he does to an extent, he tries to butt in when i feed Luger but when I offer him the food he just shy's away...Anyway, advice is much appreciated..Thanks

I have crop fed before, and do know how to do so but never attempted it on a bird of this age and to be honest would much rather not even have to try if there is an alternate solution.

[janene]

You know I fed them after writing this post and my IRN made a liar out of me and ate a decent amount. I found Luger's begging and crying made Winchester a little more eager to try it also.

[avinet]

Sounds like it will work out OK but again - with all the Asiatic species, the older the baby is when you start trying to hand rear the harder it is to get them eating and the bigger the chance of serious problems developing.

Always try to start feeding Asiatics at around 2 weeks.

Trying to crop feed an older ringneck baby is not going to result in a trusting happy baby - they don't take kindly to crop feeding once they are beyond 3 weeks.

cheers,

Mike