Conure that wont eat fresh fruit!

[dubge]

Well my sun conure will not eat fresh fruit when I give it to her. She just backs away from it. When I put it in her bowl it goes untouched. She WILL eat dried fruit that comes in the food mix. I have a dehydrator and can dry out different things for her if that will help? Then maybe I can dry it out less and less each time maybe?

So far I have given her, oranges, apples, bananas, blueberries, grapes (she dropped this right out of her dish) she did taste orange juice 1 time but that was it, at first she didnt like raisins but eventually ate them when I left them in her bowl.

I do feed her mixed vegis with corn, carrots, green beans and peas every day with pasta mixed in a few times a week and a seed pellet mix with dried fruit is always available to her.

She also gets millet sticks a few times a week as well as snacks several times a day from yogurt covered mangos (her fav) to peanuts in the shell, soy nuts and assorted bird treats that the wife and kids have picked up at the stores.

Any other recommendation for feeding?

Thanks
Ray

[greencinacheeks]

perhaps dehydrating less each week could work.

another thing to try is. eat some of the veggie/fruit your self in front of him let him see how good it is and how much you are enjoying it. Sun conures are extremely outgoing/curious birds if you are enjoying this new food he is most likely going to want try it for himself. that i got my late sun to eat veggies. and do this with all new foods.

~nate

[Monica]

Fruits usually aren't that big of an issue, as compared to veggies. We hardly ever have fruits here, so the birds rarely get fruits. Not all the birds here will even eat fruits cause they aren't used to eating them.

[DarwinTheSun]

Our sun didn't want to try new fruits at first, but now will readily grab new fruits out of his bowl. We did exactly what Nate said. We ate fruits in front of him and he definitely wanted to try it. If you dont offer it to him at all and even act like he cant have any it will make your bird want it even more. Oranges shouldn't be offered very often because of the high acidity, and grapes have little nutrition (except the seeds and skins which they wont eat), so stick to the apples, bananas, blueberries. You can also try other nutritious fruits like, papaya, melon, mango, strawberries (organic), raspberries, blackberries, etc...Oh, and be prepared for a mess when your bird finally figures out how delicious they are!

[PowerBBS]

I found that if you eat the fruit with them. They'll tend to try it and start to like it.

Our Sun Conure and our Green Cheek Conure are afraid of all new foods so we have to introduce them to the birds by eating from the same bowl we offer to the birds. In some cases piercing a grape in half with our teeth and then feeding it to the them.

This method has our conures now readily accepting carrots, peas, coliflower, green beans, oranges, grapes, cantelope, watermelon, honey dew, strawberries.

We had to do the same with eggs, oatmeal, etc... but once they see us eat it... they just want it too....

Give that a try... you might surprise yourself.

[ccg]

Like the other shave said, eat it infron tof them and they'll want to try it. Even go as far as teasing them, have a few peaces in your hand, eat one, act excited, or maybe even make a chirp and raise your head up (what my Nanday does when he likes something), then as your about to give them a peace, pull it back and eat it yourself. I find doing that a few times make my Nanday crazy for whatever I have and he'll try anything at least once. I even did this to get him off seeds and onto various pellets for his main course.

[Okanairda]

Well, this might be peculiar to my bird, but my sun conure won't eat fruit on his own unless it's cut up into small chunks he can pick up in one foot.

If all else fails, you can always try sneaking fruit into some birdie bread. My sun still isn't a fan of fresh veggies, so I make veggie birdie bread for him. There's some good recipes floating around the DIY section here. I like the idea of gradually dehydrating the fruit less and less each week though. Good luck!