Blizzard the Umbrella Cockatoo (video #2)
Added 2022-05-31 19:00:00 +0000 UTCDays 4-12 with Blizzard.
Comments
Years ago, when my son was about 6 or 7, he started having trouble with food. Doctors did a bunch of tests to make sure it wasn't physical (in the end it wasn't, but he would throw up after eating a few bites of anything and just crumble into tears), but then recommended food "therapy". We are lucky there was a dedicated clinic near our home, and many of the things you teach for parrot diet conversion were things we applied to help our little human eat better! First the therapist would talk about a food, and asked him to "rate" his level of comfort on a visual chart of emojis, from literally breaking down to happy and eager. Then she would bring it in the room in a container. Then she would open the container (and we could smell it). Then she set it in front of him, asked him to touch it with a finger, to pick it up, to put it to his nose, to touch it with his tongue or lips, to put teeth marks in it, etc. It sounds ridiculous, and it took some time, but it really helped! Today he is an adventurous eater -- and now I realize I can apply some of that same experience with my mini macaw and her diet conversion (which is generally going well but we have had some recent setbacks). Thank you!
Julie K
2022-06-02 15:02:21 +0000 UTCThis was so very interesting to me. I just finished for the most part diet conversion. We went through so many different things including a vet scaring both of my birds to death and they both lost weight after the vet appointment. My INR lost 5 g. I was not happy and do not plan to go back to that vet. Also they lied about her being a certified avian vet. You had such good ideas that I did not think of my GCC has quite a sweet tooth so does my INR so I mixed sweet potatoes in to get them to except seasonal feeding system. They loved the pallets but I had trouble seeing if they were having fun smashing up the pellets instead of eating them so I started weighing the dust as it was recommended by a staff member at Birdtricks. I’m still working with that. Both of my birds spend all night until bedtime eating dust. Thank you Jamie for doing this for us. You are such a model of what it is to be a good bird owner.
Connie Muttart
2022-06-01 23:44:32 +0000 UTCIt’s so good realising I’m not the only 1 parrot owner who has a bird that doesn’t much care for SFS or pellets 😭having said that since our first consult with Jamie she’s now starting to eat her SFS with more enthusiasm but now doesn’t bother with pellets so back to the drawing board or should I say the kitchen to cool up some concoctions 🤦🏻♀️😂
Claire Harris
2022-06-01 12:41:06 +0000 UTCI think Blizz understands that Dave's spirit animal is an Umbrella Cockatoo. Atleast it's not as bad as I originally pictured it. When you first said you were bringing home a UC I imagined target training with a 10 foot target stick.
Chris Mallabon
2022-06-01 03:29:09 +0000 UTCThis is near and dear to my heart since I'm going through diet conversion with an umbrella cockatoo currently, except my guy switched to the seasonal feeding system with hardly any effort, it's the pellets I'm having a hard time with. Several days ago I started blending up some Harrison's lifetime pellets, and combining that with TOPS birdie bread and some sweet potato, and he's consistently eating that. As well I noticed that his weight has gone up 30 g since I started doing that. He's pretty underweight, his little keel really sticks out, and he just flat out refuses to eat an actual pellet - he'll take it and drop it - so I've got a ways to go yet.
Heather Wolf
2022-05-31 22:56:51 +0000 UTC
