How to introduce healthy food to...

[JPAM]

Alright, here is what is happening. I was reading around and I never knew that feeding a full seed diet could actually make a bird sick and possibly cause early death. *sigh* So, I now would like to know how to introduce vegetables and fruits to an 8 y/o parakeet who has had nothing but seed since he was a baby. I have tried introducing things like apples but, they go unnoticed and wasted. I read around and a lot of people introduce new things to their birds quickly after getting them and that does not answer my question of this 8 y/o bird.

I just would like to know how I should go about introducing healthier food and how I can actually get him to eat it. I am not worried about my other bird because right now it imitates whatever Baby does. I would also like to know the kinds of foods that people often see parakeets take to quickly.

Other Info: My birds are free-flight birds (Out of the cage from 8 in the morning to 9 at night.) They have 2 window sills and a little ledge above the door. They have a round cage and 3 perches. Baby hates toys and will not play with them and has been known to knock them down in an attempt to get rid of them. Baby is an extremely stubborn male and he is living with a 4 m/o named Star (unkown sex as of yet, pretty sure it is a male.) I hope that is more than enough info.

Thanks for any answers!
~JPAM

[Oscars Mom]

Have you tried clipping greens to the cage near the perch?most keets love them.Another vitaminrich treat they love is wheatgrass. get the wheat at a grocery/natural foods storeand stick it in a deep pot .It grows pretty quickly.I got my keets to eat pellets by putting them in a mirrored treat dish.I dont know why this works but it does. The pellet co. give free samplesat their web sites so you can try them. My keets like roudybush.They like baby carrots(they're a chew toy too) stuck in the barnear the perch. Mine love spagetti .I give them barilla multigrain with chopped veggies like cornor brocoli in a treat cup .Its good to give them fresh food in the am when their hungry. It can take a while for keets to try new food so keep trying.

[tielfan]

Some birds take a long time to adapt to a better diet - it took two years for my tiels to start eating fresh carrot! So be prepared for a long, gradual process. You might want to concentrate on the younger bird at first; if he starts eating healthier food the older one may copy him.

Here’s how I got my tiels to start eating a better diet. I got a special food cup and put a small amount of their very favorite treats in it, along with some new foods I wanted them to try. At first they mostly ate the treats but eventually started eating some of the new foods too. It helps if you can half-bury the treats under the new food so they have to touch the new food to get at the treat.

It helps if the new foods don’t look too different from the seed diet they’re used to. To get them used to moist foods I gave them some cooked whole grains (from the local natural-foods grocery) then switched over to sprouted seeds and grains. Sprouts are easy to make and are an excellent source of nutrition. They’re best when the root is just barely starting to emerge, and they still look a lot like a seed at this point. Since sprouts are already moist, they’re a good vehicle for red palm oil and other supplements that you can add just before you feed them.

I also taught my birds to take treats from my hand and sometimes offered new foods this way. Sometimes they wouldn’t take the new food, but sometimes they would!

With fruits and veggies it pays to experiment with the presentation. Some birds like stuff cut up in chunks in a bowl and others like it some other way. My birds prefer their veggies whole and hanging up. They prefer certain shapes too. In the wild, cockatiels eat a lot of seed and also chew on the stems of grass and other plants to extract the juices. My birds like vegetables that resemble either a seed or a stem. They don’t like big broad leaves, and cutting big leaves into thin strips doesn’t fool them. Cockatiels have a similar wild diet to budgies and other grass keets, so your birds might have a similar preference.

Their very favorite ‘vegetable’ is lawn grass (chemical free of course). Unripe seed heads are a definite plus. We humans can’t digest it but it’s part of the birds’ wild diet so I think it’s great. They like ‘stemmy’ or narrow-leaved vegetables like asparagus, dandelion greens, carrot tops, and cilantro. They also like seed-like vegetables: corn kernels, peas, broccoli (the florets look like unripe seed heads). A whole pea might be too big for a budgie to handle, but you can cut the pea in half or squeeze it between your thumb and finger until it cracks. This will give the bird something it can grab onto and work with.

[ray1457]

In the morning, offer ONLY the "new" foods that you are trying to get them to eat; they will be more likely to sample new stuff when they are hungry. Try putting pellets / veggies into a "birdy bread" mix; most birds love that...

[Wiggi]

Im my opinion, cockatiels and parakeets (I guess you mean parakeet as in budgie?) should not be given pellets. They live on a rather poor diet in the wild and should not be given to fat foods as it can cause a lot of problems (but breeding birds of course need more protein and fat in their diet).

A special seed mix for budgies and some vegetables and fruits would be enough for a budgie. Try to serve the fresh food in different sizes and shapes. Carrots or apples hanging from the cage top is often appreciated (even if most of it seems to end up on the floor). If your bird is tame you can let him watch when you eat something you want him to eat and then let him try it too. And be patient, it may take a while!

[Heather_Bird]

Hmmmmm! Mixed answer from me. No, I don't think pellets are the be-all and end-all for budgies. Mine don't get them at all and I have been keeping them succesfully in aviaries (breeding) and cages for years. A good quality seed mix coupled with plenty of fresh food is the key IMHO. Budgies will try almost anything as they are amazingly nosey. I would give your guy the best quality seed (or seed/pellet mix) you can manage and add daily fresh food (apple, pear, corn, greens, carrot, etc). The key with recalcitrant birds is persistence. Keep trying even when your efforts fo uneaten for weeks. Eventually your guy will eat them.

The advice you have been given so far is sound so use all the tricks and remember that you have a much larger brain! Good luck!

All the best,

Heather