a new galah!

[aprar]

Hello!
This is Aprar from saudi arabia and I am new to this forum!
I just got a new baby galah I believe! since the guy I bought him from said he's 8 months old, and I don't really know and I am not experienced in galahs but I think he is younger! i attached his photo so you guys can see and tell me.
the problem is that he does not eat anything other than sunflower seeds! he refuses everything else! and I tried a bunch of other things such as vegies and fruits and still he won't eat them!
I'm so scared I love him so much and I don't want to miss treat him! so can you please tell me what to do? is he sick? is this normal?
p.s: I noticed he doesn't drink water that much is it normal too?
Thank you all in advance!

[avinet]

Hi Aprar and welcome to the Forum - I think you may be the first member we have from Saudi Arabia Most of our members are in Australia, but we welcome members from all over the world.

Your Galah does look younger than 8 months, possibly 6 months or less - there is a lot of grey mixed in with the pink on the chest and neck area. And he looks like the Eastern Australia subspecies of Galah.

I do have concerns about his diet up to now - his feathering looks in poor condition, indicative of poor nutrition before you got him - poor nutrition during the baby stage when those feathers were forming. However if you can get him onto a good diet, as you are trying, then when he moults that feather condition will correct itself.

As you are aware, sunflower alone is bad for a Galah - he should be getting as seed mostly a budgie mix with a small amount of sunflower - 12 seeds a day of sunflower is enough. Even better would be a low fat pellet diet but I don't know what is available for you in Saudi Arabia in bird products, or if it is possible to buy such stuff from outside your country on the Internet.

My suggestion in the short term is to give him a budgie seed mix if you have that available with no sunflower added, and continue to give a variety of fruit and veggies daily. Galahs are not silly - they won't let themselves starve if their favourite food is unavailable. He won't be happy but he will end up eating what is available within a day or two. If he is stubborn then add some sunflower mixed in with the fresh food - hopefully in getting out the sunflower he will discover that the other food in the dish is pretty good too. Then you can gradually decrease the sunflower until there is none in the dish.

Once he is weaned off the sunflower then that will give you the ideal treat to reward him for good behaviour - positive reinforcement training methods using sunflower work extremely well with Galahs.

I would also suggest you see if some bird vitamins are available - they come in either concentrated liquid or powder form and are usually added to drinking water. Also given his likely very poor diet so far, a calcium supplement would also be good - he will have a low calcium problem at present which if not corrected might lead to problems before long. If you can let us know what you have available for both I can probably advise on dosage rates etc.

If you are unable to get a bird vitamin supplement then a vitamin mix for human babies can be used - check back here for possible amounts to give - probably no more than one drop a day

They don't drink a lot of water - possibly around 15 ml a day with a Galah so I doubt you have any problems there.

Galahs can make lovely pet birds - great personality, very happy playful birds that are not afraid of acting silly at times .

Are there many people keeping pet parrots in Saudi Arabia? Was he bred in your country or was he bred elsewhere? I confess to knowing nothing about bird keeping in your country, although I believe falconry is popular throughout the Middle East.

cheers,

Mike

[sfan]

I can't get them to eat a lot of fruit usually. They like some fresh corn or dark leaf spinach, kale or cabbage. Fresh bean shoots, green beans, chillies etc are also good.

[angelica]

I think he is about 3 months actually, I have a four month old Galah and looks older than that. Hopefully by now you have managed to get him off sunflower seeds, even if you have to get him to a seed mix. Sunflower seeds are really high in fat, which is even more dangerous to Galah because, out of all the species Galah's tend to very easily get fatty tumors which can result in death. Even if you get him on a seed diet and gradually convert him to pellets and offer fresh fruits and vegetables. Bathing your Galah will also help get his plumage to grow out healthier.