Health, Growth and Lifestyle Change for Cinnamon

COMPLETE PSITTACINE by EB Cravens

Some months ago, April and I were contacted and asked to adopt someone’s pet female cockatiel. The long-time owner had departed for college on the mainland and left the bird with her parents. But as with many pet bird surrenders, these adults quickly tired of taking care of a parrot they had never chosen to acquire.

Little of the previous history was known about this cockatiel, the person who dropped it off at our house was not informed about it at all. The parrot had never been named and was just called 'the bird', and had been living in a small cage, eating a 100 per cent seed diet - not surprising! A period of laying eggs had demonstrated definitely that she was a girl. When the tiel arrived, I was amazed to see that it was a cinnamon white face mutation, rather rare in Hawaii. So we logically named her 'Cinnamon'.

Cinnamon had spent numerous years in a home with no other parrots, so accordingly, we quarantined her for only a week in a cage in the house here. She was an affectionate thing, preferring women, to whom she would bow her head and solicit long neck scratch sessions. She was also downright obese! Likely eating of cheap cockatiel seed was her one diversion in life since her primary caregiver had departed. I have noticed in the past that often small parrots will overeat when they are being fed lackluster seed diets, because they crave micronutrients and trace minerals not present in large enough quantities in their nutritional regimen.