ref african ringnecks feeding

Question
I have breed an ringneck it is 3 months old now, Is it old enough to it seeds and nuts or should i be hand rearing it with egg food and suringe, the parents dont have anything to do with it as it has a deformed claw, i have taken it into the house and put it into a cage, it has eaten a raisen from my fingers any help would be apreiciated. nigel

Answer
If your bird is not used to being hand-fed, he is probably too old now to accept feedings. However, ringnecks usually do not fully wean from their mom and dad (or human hand-feeder) until they are around 4 months old. Since his parents have stopped feeding him- try offering him soft foods that are good "transition foods" from the regurgitated food babies are used to eating to solid foods like pellets, veggies, and some seeds/nuts. You can try feeding him softened wheat bread (just add a couple drops of water). Also try cooked sweet potato and carrots. Leafy greens are also good like Kale, swiss chard, and mustard greens. Apples, papaya, squash and cantalope are good too. You can also scramble or hard-boil an egg for your bird. Lastly, you can try getting commercially made bird hand-feeding formula and leaving it in a dish for your bird. Remember though, many of these foods listed above will go bad after a couple of hours and will spoil, so make sure to remove them before this happens.

I would also suggest weighing your bird daily, or every other day (in grams) to make sure your bird doesn't loose too much weight. Up to a 10% decrease in body weight is ok for fledgling birds, but any more than this is dangerous.

I hope this helps.

-Maggie