by Pajarita » Thu Oct 19, 2023 10:45 am
Give her ONLY wet food: gloop, fresh juicy fruits (orange, berries, ripe pears, etc) and juicy veggies (tomatoes, corn on the cob, etc). As long as she is not eating anything dry, she will get enough hydration with the wet diet and the bit of water she drinks early in the am and in the evening because that is EXACTLY what Nature intended for them (there is nothing dry in nature for them to eat).
As to her not liking her cage... well, who can blame her? I really do not have a lot of personal experience convincing them to go into their cages because mine go on their own when it's their dinner time. There is a process with new birds but it never lasts more than a couple of days, they do 'take a step back' a couple of times but, after that, they never again balk at it because once they realize that they only eat dinner (which they LOVE because is nuts) and sleep in the cage, they have no problem going in... quite the contrary, they are eager for it. Yogi Macaw came to me with the 'warning' that 'he likes his freedom' but now he goes in as soon as I open the door and, if his bowl does not have his nuts yet, he hangs from the door asking for them. Between their desire for nuts and the deepening twilight, the whole thing works like a charm. To give you an idea, this time of the year, I open their cages with a "Good morning!" at 7 am (when the sky is beginning to get a tiny bit of light), turn on their lights at 9am, off at 3:30 pm and give them dinner (when they go back into their cages) at 5:30 pm. It's not me who trains them to do this, it's their circadian cycle that does it.