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[ramunefizz]

Hello again! Just posting some updates on Nikki and Romeo, my jerk birds who hate non-seed food

Comments

[kynekh_amagire]

The hens of birds of prey are almost always larger than the boys. Parrots are much less consistent that way: you get plenty of big boys and tiny girls. When a bird is exceptionally overweight, you can sometimes see "birdie boobs" -- deposits of fat on either side of the breastbone that make a bird look like a caricature of an operatic soprano -- but most of the time it's a little difficult to evaluate a bird's body condition by looking/feeling, especially if the bird is small. Your best bet for accuracy is to buy a gram scale and weigh your birds regularly to find out if they're losing or gaining. This will also let you be more aggressive with your diet conversion: when I'm switching a bird from seed to pellets, and I see that they're eating at least some pellets, I will usually take the seed away entirely. If the bird drops weight, they can have the seeds back for a limited period of time during the day: however, if they eat enough pellets to maintain, conversion is done and TA-DAAAAAA no more seed hulls everywhere

[ramunefizz]

I'm not worried about Romeo's pellets-- she grazes pretty much constantly(compared to Nikki anyway) and I rarely see her go for the seed, but it's usually at night. Nikki I worry more about in the weight area since he's already very tiny and seems to treat pellets as a snack. Regardless, once they get their flight cage they'll be housing together, so I'll watch their food a bit more carefully