New bird fluffed 24/7

[budgiegirl82]

Hi all,
A new little guy moved in last week, and at the aviary he was very healthy and chirped constantly, but ever since coming home he's been silent and fluffed up. He rarely moves if I'm in the room and his tail kinda wavers back and forth...is this from stress or sickness? His dropping are fine and his cere is clear. I'm especially worried because my last bird died of illness, but I scrubbed the cage and got all new things so I thought he'd be fine.

Thanks for your help.

[OP]

Hello budgiegirl82 and welcome to the forum. From what I read in your post and my inexperience I would think stress to begin with. I answered your post as Sunday morning is quiet and I didn't want you thinking you were being ignored.

[Hezz]

Hi there. Okay we need a little more info before making guesses. How old is the new bird? Is he in with others? Do you have others? (In which case he should be in quarantine.) How did he get from there to you ie transport ...... did you bring him home with you, or was he delivered? Is he used to humans, and being handled??

If he is young, as in anything from 6 weeks to 10 weeks of age, and used to being in an aviary with plenty of company, then he could well be just scared (and therefore under some stress). If so, you can help him settle in by spending time in the same room as him, simply talking to him so he gets used to your voice, putting your hand in the cage, with a small spray of millet preferably, so he gets to know you are not an ogre. If he isn't used to humans then you will have to take things very quietly for a while until you can convince him that you are to be trusted. A lot of this is all about trust. It is not unusual for him to be stationary when you are in the room - this sounds like he is rather scared of you/humans. If he is on his own he is going to be stressed about this as well, as he has just come from an aviary where he had plenty of birdie company.

There are plenty of reasons why he may be doing what he is doing, but firstly some more background to his and your situations will help, and of course a photo or two will also help. You will need something like photobucket/tinypic/imageshack to upload your photos to, and then copy the img to our forum.

This may be a bit disjointed, sorry about that, but trying to help, but rushing as well ....... but photos are the best indicator.