Training with a picky eater

[Chrissi]

I have been trying to train my budgie with no sucess. I know of lots of methods to train, if you have a treat to reinforce the wanted behavior. Unfortunately, Fry is a very picky eater. He only likes his seed food. I cannot seem to interest him in anything else. Ocassionally he will eat some broccoli, but he doesnt find it that much of a treat and usually turns his nose up at it. Even spray millet doesn't interest him. Any suggestions on what to use as a treat, or is there another kind of training i could try that doesnt involve treats? Thanks!

[Monica]

Fresh foods, such as grains, legumes, veggies, and fruits should not be considered "treats" but rather a staple part of the diet.

With that said though, you can try using his regular food. I got 5 flighted, adult budgies comfortable enough to fly to me out of their cage to eat from my hand, then fly back to eat more. You can see in the below post.

New and clueless...

[Chicklette]

You can use very tiny bites of dried fruit. They are usually at any pet store. I forget the name but this is what they look like. You might want to try that, I know my friend has a very picky Budgie as well, just like yours and she gobbles there up.

[expressmailtome]

Those treats in the cup look similar to these:ISLAND FUN FRUIT MEDLEY - 4 OZ - Dried Fruits - AvianEnrichment.com . Only yours are smaller which would be better for training but I guess that you could cut these if you wanted to try them.

Matt

[tabooh]

Just give it sometime, he may have a change of mind. You could try by giving him different foods by placing them on his playstand if he has one, or just leave it in his cage for the allowed time, don't want the food to go bad, just keep trying.

[Chrissi]

I will check for those next time i am in the pet store. Thanks!

[Johnni Gade]

I got the same problem

[Nuesha]

If you can try to switch him onto a pelleted diet than seeds would be a wonderful treat.

Also use a clicker to train, I've had most success with my birds with the "click + reward" process.

scratches can also be used as a reward.

My WC pi use to be on seed but I started to add pellets into his diet and I would wait and see if he would eat the pellets. It took him a while but he started nibbling on one here and there, so I started gradually adding more pellets and less seed. Now he's on a complete pellet diet (with fruits and veggies of course)