Monkeybird's Marco is doing great, but not adding much weight

[MonkeyBird]

Marco (4+ months) continues to do very well. He eats like a little piggy (pellet, seed, and veggies), and is busy being a goofy baby grey all day. He weighed 13 5/8ths ounces when brought home on Dec. 10, and has not gone below that, although he fluctuates from that up to a whopping 14 ounces once, with no more than an eighth ounce gain or loss from day to day. He gets weighed each morning after his morning dump and before breakfast, which he is always eager for. Given that we took our remaining vacation time for the last 2 weeks (to spend with the new family member), we figured he was not napping enough during the day, so we added naps to his days, and also put him "to bed" by 10:30 at the latest (even then, he would really prefer to keep playing but rules are rules).

 

Is it normal for a very active baby to fluctuate by such small increments from day to day? As I said, no other concerns, appetite and activity levels are both high. We noticed when we put him to bed earlier, he generally gains, so we corrected our bad habit of keeping him too late.

[DawL]

it sounds to me like he is just fine. He is not losing weight at a rapid weight, and is active, and eating well. You do need to make sure that he is getting 10-12 hours of sleep at night though, this is very important for their health. You need to remember that jst because you are in bed asleep does not mean he is. He more than likely gets up when the sun rises, and if he goes to bed around 10:30pm, and sleep until the sun comes up at say...7am, that is not enough sleep.

[Ray P]

4 months old and roughly 383 grams, I would say your grey is doing fine. When your grey starts to fly there may be slight weight loss at first but it will come back.

Sounds like a happy grey. Have you had a vet check yet ?

[judygram]

The weight can depend on what type of bone structure they are as there are small, medium and large boned greys and Ray is right about a slight weight loss when fledging so it sounds like Marco is perfectly normal.

[MonkeyBird]

Thanks all for the reassurance. I was pretty certain our boy was not getting enough sleep, it was just too darn fun to play/bond while off for his first 2 weeks home, but this has been corrected.