What foods are totally "of limits" for conures?

[Tikibird]

I seem to have the opposite problem mine will eat anything he gets in contact with I actually have to cage him while we eat any tips on that??

[nelly&jake]

That is hard, does he have a perch for the dinner table? Somewhere that he knows he must stay while you are eating? Jake has a basket perch that we use at the table. He has to stay on it while we eat. If he gets down, back to his cage he goes and he misses out on dinner. Then, I can offer him only the foods that are "good for him". 90% of what we eat is okay for him and after talking to my avian vet today, she said that I could even allow him to have a bit more of things like peanut butter, pasta, and cheese to keep his weight up. Once your bird learns that he will miss out unless he is well behaved at dinner time, he will start to wait for you to offer food to him. I had a parrot when I was much younger that would walk from dinner plate to dinner plate and steal what he wanted from each plate. At the time, I thought it was cute, but he ended up having to stay in his cage for dinner time when my Dad got fed up with the bad table manners. Jake, my conure, has much better table manners and is actually fun to have eat with us just like the rest of the family.

[Chariclo]

Okay - I don't have a conure (yet) but I can tell you what works for my fids. My macaw and amazon only get fruit and veggies first thing in the morning. Around mid morningish I remove the fresh stuff and give them some nuts and some kind of bread or pasta to nibble on. They do not get any seed until around 3:00 in the afternoon. The seed is then removed prior to their dinner which is cooked veggies and rice typically.

I would begin limiting the seed that is available to them, while at the same time introducing and providing the fresh stuff. You can make the switch gradually - so they aren't so dependent on the seed being there all the time.

Good luck!

[Nandayjan]

Hi there,
I had the same problem with my Nanday. What I did was take away all foods at nite then in morning offer a cup of diced veggies. After an hour I would then place a small serving of his fav foods ie seed cup but only leaving it in cage an hour. then in after noon i would place a cup of fresh fruit in his cage. It took weeks for him to start really enjoying the other foods. I wasted alot in the begining now he enjoys everything and I can leave seed cup in all day and he will still eat the fresh when i put in. He does do the picking out thing on breads and that is ok cause he is eating the fresh stuff. Hope this helps.
nanaday Jan

[TeresaB]

I have had my two sun conyers for a year and it took me about 7 months to get them to eat fresh foods. Mine eat most veggies that I give them. I usually make a mix of wild rice, carrots, soy beans, green beans, kidney beans, sweet potatoes, turnips and turnip greens. Sometimes I put cranberrys in, if they're available or craisins. Once or twice a week I will give them some apple, oranges and/or bananna. Same diet that I feed my M2. They also get in a seperate bowl a nice seed mix that I buy from Nancy (Outlaw), but in small doses.

You just have to keep vigilant and keep offering it to them everyday. Finally they tried it and they have been chowing ever since. :icon_smil