The Joy of Hand-feeding Spunky

At first, I was thinking of writing and posting this entry after Spunky is fully weaned. Somehow, even after about 10 weeks old now - I brought him home when he was about one month and it's been six weeks since - and with no signs of eating totally independently, I thought I'd just write on.

The weaning age of conures is, generally, ten weeks. By right, Spunky could've learnt how to eat on its own and shouldn't have begged to be hand-fed anymore. Of course, every bird weans at their own time - some go faster, and others a little bit slower. I don't wish to rush Spunky to wean as quickly as possible, and as a matter of fact, I'm actually more than happy hand-feeding him whenever he begs for food. As the avian experts say, the longer the hand-feeding process, the tamer the bird will become. Drawing from my own experience with this young sun conure, it can't be more true.

Spunky is making progress day by day, trying new food being offered to him with gusto. Broccoli, corn, long beans, mango, cauliflower, pellets, mixed seed for conures - he takes everything down! Always eager to check out what I offer him in the dish bowl, he is one hearty eater - a small body with a big appetite. The time he's not eating is when he's playing with the toys or when he's out of the cage or when he's asleep. If he's in the cage, anyone will likely find him looking up from the food bowl, munching away, with beak looking very messy. True bird people will find it cute. As for myself, most of the time I can't resist taking a tissue and wiping the food off. Sometimes, though, I'd just laugh at his face!

Photo: A small body with a big appetite!

Now and then, still three-four feedings a day, I'd give him the baby cereal, recently mixed with drops of wheat germ oil for beautiful plumage. This little guy is very smart, I tell you. He simply hates it whenever I wipe the mess off his beak with a tissue, and he'll always find ways to escape and fly onto my body and wipe his beak on my clothes! But how can I be angry at him? For more than a month I've been waking up early in the morning to feed him, I've been losing many good times with my friends to be with him, I've been cutting my shopping time short just to rush home and play with him, I've been worrying at work and thinking how's he doing... my love for him goes beyond everything.

Err... minus the ear-splitting screeches, of course!

[Additional Note: Repeating the sentence from my previous entry, although I made a vow not to buy unweaned baby birds anymore after two traumatic experiences before, I still strongly believe that novice bird keepers shouldn't purchase neonates (the term for unweaned birds). I know you might go, "Do as I say, not as I do", but as I've learnt so far, hand-feeding a baby bird is one delicate process. It requires total commitment, patience, and tender-loving-care. Learning from this experience, I'm beginning to understand how busy bird breeders are, why they practice close aviary and never let outsiders go near the breeding sites, and why their main concern is to have caring and loving potential owners who will care and love the babies as much as they do. Definitely never, ever fall on the myth that just because you hand-feed the bird, it will bond closer to you. Birds that are just recently weaned can also learn to be tame, provided you spend more time to build trust, interact and play with it.]