Weaning: All babies are sold fully weaned. I WILL NOT SELL BABIES UNWEANED, EVEN IF YOU HAVE EXPERIENCE HAND-FEEDING. My babies are allowed to wean at their own pace onto a variety of healthy foods. I usually keep babies around for a couple extra weeks after weaning just to make sure they are off to a good start before sending them to their new homes. In general:
Amazons wean at 10-12 weeks old and are ready to go at about 4 months old.
Quakers wean at about 8-9 weeks old and are ready to go at about 10-12 weeks old.
Parrotlets wean at about 6-8 weeks old and are ready to go at 9-12 weeks old.
Feeding: The internet has a lot of information about feeding. The following are my general guidelines, and what the babies is fed here. I give the babies about an even mix of seed, pellets, veggies and sprouted seeds. I use a regular cockatiel seed mix for all the species I breed. Large parrot seed mixes are way to high in fat for amazons, so even they are fed little bird seeds. I use Kaytee Exact natural colored cockatiel pellets or Zupreem natural parakeet sized pellets. I've found that big birds waste less food when given smaller pellets, so again, even the amazons are fed smaller sized foods. My favorite sprout mix is from aviannaturals.com. I occasionally use chinaprairie.com sprouts as well. Veggies include broccoli, cooked squash, cooked sweet potato, carrots, mustard greens, kale and collard greens, peppers, green beans and almost anything that is good for people. Fruits have less nutritional value than vegetables(mostly sugar and water) so they are fed sparingly. Good fruits would be bannana, apple, mango, papaya. Parrots need a lot of vitamin A, so I try to make sure most of their veggies and fruits are high in this vitamin. The one major exception would be avacodo which is TOXIC to parrots. Also onions and rhubarb are on the do not feed list.
If you choose to feed an all natural diet, you could eliminate the pellets and replace with either more sprouts or a cooked bean and grain mix. Just remember that you must combine a grain with a bean at about a
2 grain:1 bean ratio to get a good amino acid profile.
Seed only diets are way to high in fat and very deficient in vitamins and protien. Even vitamin fortified seed mixes are still lacking in certain amino acids, calcium and many other things important for a bird's health.
Pellet only diets can be just as dangerous. Unfortunately many vets are still recommending them. In recent years, there have been many reports of kidney problems in birds fed predominantly pellet only diets.
I believe that pellets and seed can be an important part of a good diet, but should not make up the majority of their diet. You probably will not need to feed any extra vitamins or minerals on the above diet, and doing so may be harmeful because the pellets already contain vitamins. If you want to use vitamins, get a vitamin powder that can go on the soft food and offer it only a couple times a week at a very light dose. Female birds may benefit from some extra calcium, but also, a very light dose infrequently. You can also put a cuddle bone in the smaller quaker and parrotlet cages for exra calcium free choice.
Cages: The following are approximate cage dimensions for the species I breed.
Amazon: 24" deep X 30"+ long. 1 inch bar spacing.
Quakers: 20" deep X 20"+ long. 3/4 inch bar spacing.
Parrotlets: 15" deep X 20" +long minimum 1/2 inch bar spacing.
Please do not skimp on the cage. This is where the baby will probably spend most of its life. Birds with cages big enough to work off excess energy in are usually more willing to spend quality time with their owners in the evening. Please do not put a parrotlet in one of those tiny little $15 cages from Petsmart. Those cages aren't even big enough for a finch. Similarly, a nice large cage for an amazon is essential during the height of the breeding season when he might have to spend more time in there for everyone's safety. Just make sure the bird can't fit its head through the bars. Height is less important than legth. Do not try to compensate for a small cage by getting a tall cage. Birds use horizontal space more than vertical space.
Toys: Quakers love toys with little plastic and wooden beads or shapes that they can manipulate with their beak. Short strands of rope or Paulie rope are good for preening toys. Paulie rope can be found at greyfeathertoys.com
Parrotlets love small toys with lots of motion. A very cheap flimsey little swing is almost an essential part of their cage. They also love toys with little parts like the quakers do. Just make sure they can't swallow little plastic pieces.
Amazons like heavy toys that swing from the top of the cage. They like to hange upside down and beat up on their toys and have them swing back at them. Pipe bells on short sections of chain are great. Wooden blocks strung up on a scewer or chain are also good. They also like toys they can hold in ther foot and chew on. At the bottom of this page are links to a couple sites with great toys.
All of these species benefit from having a variety of wood toys to chew on.
Please do not get your bird a hidey hut or any similar type of snuggly toy. One of my parrotlets nearly died when it got a single string wrapped around its neck. The owners did manage to remove it, but I've heard of many similar instances and do NOT recommend them. Ever. They have also been known to cause undesirable sexual behaviors in mature birds who see them as nest boxes.
Check all toys with rope everyday. If your bird likes to untie knots, give them only short sections of rope, so that if they untie their toy while you are gone, it isn't long enough to be an entanglement hazard. If you buy a toy that comes with a long section of exposed chain or rope, you might want to consider adding some large acrylic beads or wooden blocks to the chain. Bells hung on long chains can become nooses if the bird likes to wreslte with the chain. These can be made safer by getting some untreated pine from the hardware store, cutting to size, drilling a hole in it and adding it to the chain.
birdsnways.com is a good general information place with lots of good articles and a quaker message board.
parrotstrut.com also has good message boards for many species
Good toy websites include:
birdsafe.com
greyfeathertoys.com
tristatepets.com