Cockatiel Treats?

[Thowraa]

When you say 'Corn' do you mean sweetcorn?

He wont even eat millet at the moment for some strange reason. I honestly believe he doesn't know half of the stuff he's given is food. And I dont really want to eat manky vegetables or millet to convince him otherwise :(

EDIT: The vegetables I give him aren't actually manky, they just taste manky to me.

[Tigey]

my tiel astro is quite picky.. but she picks out all the sunflower seeds and she looks a bit pudgy actually..

but ive tried lots of things also, including the recipes from this site. she didnt like the beans & rice mix and she didnt like the sweet potato and corn mash either.. all those hours cooking for nothing.

but - she does like plain broccoli and broccolini.. as well as lettuce.. and she also picks at the bird friendly carrot cake thats in the recipe section.

so try green leafy stuff, and maybe stick a chunk of corn on the cob through the cage wire

i bought a huge bag of pellets to mix in with the birdies seeds.. neither of them like it but i mix it in anyway.. im sure they wont eat it if it was the only thing there to eat, or it might be cos they know they get fresh food when i get home from work..

stick to a routine i guess

[Thowraa]

I think I have the opposite problem, he doesn't seem to want to eat anything other than the small seeds in his mix, which means he's actually making himself loose weight because he's only eating the one kind of seed. He wont eat any veggies, and he wont eat anything I give to try to fatten him up.

I want him to eat the sunflower seeds. I'd be happy if he ate ALL the seed I give him, but because I dont want to waste tonnes of seed by filling the cup up every day I'm sure he's not getting enough.
I cant go filling the cup to the top every day, just to make sure he gets his share of what he actually wants to eat. It's becoming a bit of a problem because he's wasting an awful lot of seed a day, even though I try not to give him alot.

At the moment he has egg food and veggies in his cage, which I'm trying to get him to eat. I'll take them out when I weigh him later. He was 81g 2 days ago, 80g yesterday, if he's back below 80g today when I weigh him at 20:00 I'm going to be really stressed out. He has a honey stick bar thing, millet spray and all that food in there, I just dont know what else to do. He's been given a clean bill of health from the vets, and is only on antibiotics 'Just in case' so I really dont know what I can do.

I've tried egg food, millet, honey stick thing, dried fruit, small amount of grape (I know it's not really great for them but I'm trying to fatten him up), peas, carrots, sprout, green beans, sweetcorn, potato, peanuts, raisins and parsnip. He hasn't eaten or even really tried tasting any of those.

I've had him 2 weeks today and he really is fantastic, I just dont know what to do about food, and I dont really want to give in.

Once I have more money I will try some lettuce, but I'm out of money now so I can only feed the fresh veg my mum buys, and we're not big lettuce eaters.

[Thowraa]

I just weighed him, and he's down to 76g :'(

I just changed the food back to seed and he's tucking in straight away, I'm so confused and stressed. I really dont know what to do. He should weigh 90 - 110 shouldn't he?

EDIT : OMG! He's actually eaten some sunflower seeds, for the first time ever! wooo! There is hope!

[Tigey]

not sure about the weight, sorry

great! sunflower seeds would probably be really good for them right now. its such a relief when they do things like that isnt it?

[Thowraa]

Yeah, a real relief, I want him to like them so they can be his special treats eventually, so it was really frustrating when he wouldn't eat them before. If he's back up to 80g tonight I'll be happy.

He's being offered seed mixed with pellets again, I'll mix him up some more veggies later.

He seems to only eat twice a day, once in the morning when I wake up and then once in the early evening, so I'm going to take his food out now once he finnishes and then later on offer him some greens at the time he usually starts eating again and see how it goes.

I have more hope now :)

[Thowraa]

SUCESS!

I removed his food since he finnished stuffing his face on seed thismorning and I offered him vegetables a couple of hours ago which he did not touch, I just replaced these with a bowl of just pellets and I'm guessing he must have just started getting hungry again because he is stuffing them down his face like he has been eating them all his life. I've added some sunflower seeds which I hope he eats because of his underweightness, but I'm so happy right now I could cry.

Tomorrow afternoon I will wait untill about this time (7pm so I wont forget *writes it down also*) before offering the greens and see if he tries them.

I'm so happy, I just had to share!

[Tiki]

Thowraa, Aussie Tiels seem to be bigger than those in other countries for some reason. Mine are all between 100-110 grams.

You might try broccolini, mine go nuts over it, also thawed frozen corn and mung beans. In these pics, Maui and Manu go nuts over broccolini.

[Thowraa]

He was 77 when he went to the vets, who said that he is underweight. Idealy I'm aiming for over 100g, he was 76 again today but I weighed him at 8, and he's continued stuffing his face for the last hour after that, so I'm hopefull he's going to put on the weight he needs.

He's just discovered that his honey treat bar is edible, I doubt there will be any left later ^_^ wooo!

EDIT: Is 'Corn' the same as 'sweetcorn' ?

[Alika]

My tiel is usually around 85-90g. When I used to handfeed babies, 76-80g was considered to be normal and healthy. Though my vet tells me that she's seen tiels as big as Tiki's.

My vet actually told me that it was good to see a tiel at 85-90g and that anything over 100g is considered to be overweight. But that's just what I was told.

Keep trying.