Reddit reviews Harrison's Bird Foods High Potency Coarse 5lb

Thank you for the ping /u/stringoflights! <3

/u/mel_bell: Thank you so much for rescuing a bird who needs your help! Pepper needs you right now and I'm so happy that you stepped up.

It definitely helps that you have a prior relationship with Pepper and that you're able to handfeed her treats.

My boyfriend and I adopted Rocky in spring 2016 under similar circumstances. The comment that /u/stringoflights linked has a lot of detail about what we did to help him.

For Pepper, I recommend that you:

• Target train her immediately. This lets you redirect Pepper when she gets into trouble, and get her in/out of the cage as needed. It also builds trust and confidence. Pepper will know that she has this awesome task she can perform (follow and touch the target stick), and that she can trust you to give her a tasty treat whenever she does it! Check out [this video](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uqtptXFyb2c
  ) for the basics. It took Rocky only a few days to get the hang of it.
  
  
• Get her diet in order. I'm not sure what she's eating now, but a balanced diet ensures that she's energized and feels healthy. A parrot who feels good is more likely to behave well, which is really important when you're training and bonding with a rescue. I recommend Harrison's High Potency Coarse for the first six months; you can switch to Harrison's Lifetime Coarse after that. She should also get "chop" every day (chopped dark green leafy vegetables for calcium source + orange vegetables for vitamin A). Save treats she really LOVES for training rewards. (seed-based treats like Nutriberries or Avicakes, nuts in the shell like almonds and pistachios)
  
  
• Get her sleep in order. All parrots need about 12 hours of sleep per night to feel their best. Is she DNA-sexed female? We're in the middle of breeding season, so she needs 14 hours of dark and silence every night to prevent egg-laying, which is stressful to her body, and hormonal behavior, which can appear aggressive if you don't know the difference. Use a blanket to cover her cage at night.
  
  
• Interact with her often, but keep the ball in her court. Don't force touching or handling when she doesn't feel like it. Talk to her, sing to her, whistle to her. Give her pieces of fruit and nuts so she knows you're the cool person who brings her food. Greys often bow their heads when they want scratched, it looks like this.
  
  
• Give her freedom. She's been trapped in a cage her whole life. Whenever you're home, open up the cage door and give her the ability to come out if she wants. Some greys will just stand on top of the cage, and others will prowl around on the floor.
  
  
• Teach her to play. This will help her entertain herself when you're not there to talk to her. Rocky finally plays with SOME bird toys, but his favorites are just things like cardboard boxes, popsicle sticks, and paper bags. Give Pepper a lot of choices and swap out toys often. She'll be afraid of toys at first, and that's normal: just don't give up, keep exposing her to new toys and she'll figure it out eventually. Some people have success modeling play behavior by pretending to play with the toys in front of their parrot, and then offering it to the parrot.
  
  I think that's all the most important stuff. Sorry for writing an essay! If you have any questions about anything, let me know. I have seven parrots, and two of them were neglected adult rescues, so I've done a lot of research on training and rehabilitating.
  
  Best of luck to you and Pepper. I can't wait to hear about how your relationship with her progresses!

Ah yes, okay. As far as feeding him is concerned, I feed my Luna Harrison's Bird Food. You can find it here for a decent price. They recommend feeding the kind that I linked you to for the first year of eating it. It's their High Potency mixture, and I think it just has extra nutrients and whatnot. Then they recommend you switch to this kind here. It's just the basic everyday diet. On top of the pellets, fruits and veggies and nuts are a good thing to give him. Apples, carrots, grapes, sweet potato, broccoli, any kind of hot or sweet pepper, greens like kale or collard greens, oranges, tomato, etc. Stuff like that. Lots of parrot owners will get an assortment of fruits and veggies, chop them up real small, and mix them together. They call it "chop", and both of my parrots love it. Seeds are something you probably want to give your parrot in small amounts, mostly as a treat.

As far as talking is concerned, you want to make sure you are spending plenty of time with him talking to him and interacting. The time that you spend with your parrot is very important, and should happen every day. Even if you're just holding him while watching TV and chatting with him during the commercials. They are social animals, and they crave to be interacted with.

To train him you might want to consider looking at target training. Here is a video that goes over the basics. There are lots of resources, both free and paid, that can be found on the internet. Google is a great tool to find all of this. There is also lots of information in different posts right here on /r/Parrots.



Hope that helps!

Can you have anything shipped to you? Harrison's pellets are pretty popular, since the company is USDA.