Birdy See, Birdy Do

[CrazyforCockatiels]

When we adopted our female cockatiel Percy, she was on a colored pellet diet exclusively. We began feeding her seeds and mixed in pellets, gradually increasing the pellets. We noticed that she wasn't eating the pellets so we added more seeds.

Then, we adopted Roosevelt. He was on a seed diet exclusively. It's been a week but we've switched him over to pellets and he's adapted well.

Now for the weird part: Since we adopted Roosevelt, during the two feeding times a day (morning and evening) for the two, they (including Percy, who wasn't big on pellets) eat pellets with a smattering of seeds buried in the pellets for their foraging time as well as the 15% of seeds (+ veggies) they need combined with about 85% pellets.

Another oddity-- Roosevelt loves his kale and broccoli and now Percy is eating her veggies, which she wasn't too keen on when we began introducing them to her. So, now Roosevelt and Percy have their pellets with seeds mixed in refreshed in the evening as well as in the morning but also partake of kale and broccoli, carrots, sweet potatoes, and whatever veggies I give to them in the morning.

I'm glad they've taken a more healthful stance with respect to their mealtimes. I think our persistance was the key.

[Monica]

Always having a second bird to be a teacher to the first (or whichever way you put that!) is a great way in getting birds to try new foods! Heck, when I first got into keeping budgies (and only budgies), I couldn't get them to eat fresh foods until I was given two who ate lettuce... and because they ate lettuce they were willing to try other foods too! (even though from my understanding lettuce was the only additional food they had gotten for about 5 years time?) Which then led to ALL budgies eating fresh foods! Since then, I haven't had any issues getting any budgies to eat fresh foods!

Can't necessarily say the same about all the tiels here! LOL But it certainly does help to have a "teacher" bird!

[CrazyforCockatiels]

Monica, now tell me how we can get our five year-old son to eat his veggies! LOL! We tried with the broccoli last night as the fids were happily chowing down but he didn't bite!

[Monica]

LOL Couldn't tell ya! I've been told that I wasn't really that bad about eating my veggies when I was younger... but I sure did love ribs! If I knew of a way, I'd tell ya!

All that I can remember though was that I've always liked most of my veggies cooked or steamed somehow... the only veggie that I really ate raw, that I can recall, was the carrot... and for veggies like broccoli I always preferred them soft... in short, I'm not really big on raw veggies...

Thinking of which, it reminds me of a story... I guess a mother fed her two sons broccoli, and called them green trees... and they ate them... when the boys went to stay at a relatives house, the relative tried to feed them cauliflower, and the boys wanted to know what happened to the trees!

[CrazyforCockatiels]

Monica- He won't even touch ribs! He doesn't eat beef- his choice. I've tried the tree story with respect to broccoli but he doesn't buy it but he does eat raw carrots.

Steamed or cooked veggies are more palatable, too, so we try to offer these to him regularly as one day, hopefully, he'll take to them. I feel as if I'm talking about the birds!