Hello Everyone,

I CANNOT get Dozy to eat pellets. The only way she will eat them is if I soak them in a drop of apple joice. I'll do this in the evening when I get home from work so that I can remove them from her cage and not leave them sit all day. I've tried the conversion method where you decrease the food she normally eats and increase pellets over a period of time. I haven't been doing this very long (week) and I realize that it could take weeks, months or years before she accepts them (if she accepts them). I also often wonder what she's been eating because when I get home from work it looks like the pellets have not been touched. There are pellets at the bottom of her cage and may be throwing them out and not eating them. I've tried several different brands of pellets and I haven't found one that she likes. This is our routine. When I leave for work I will give her pellets mixed with nuts/nutriberries/pasta/dried veges. When I get home from work I'll I give her sprouts (she LOVES sprouts) and mix some pellets with apple joice. I will also try and make her a warm meal of Beak Appetit (somethimes she likes and sometimes she doesn't) or oatmeal or beans, pasta and some sort of veges (fussy about veges). I weighed her this evening again and she is 292g. It also appearls to me that when she eats she's not eating very much. I am worried that she isn't getting enough of what she needs. I'm starting to stress out which is the worst thing I need to do. Help!!!

Thank you.

You should always weigh her at the same time- first thing in the morning right after the big poop and before she eats anything is the best time. This is the only way to get a true weight comparison from day to day. You say her last weight is 292g. How much is that down or up from her average?

It should take several weeks for a conversion, for picky birds. You don't want to put in too much pellet and too little of her current diet all at once. Have you tried different sizes of pellets? I'm not sure about other brands, but Zupreem breaks down their pellets into bird size and then flavor. Ollie will only eat the Cockatiel size. Ingredients are identical, but she doesn't like having to hold her pellets to eat them.

It always looks like their not eating as much as they really are. Often at the end of the day it won't look like Ollie has eaten any of her pellets. However, her weight is always stable and that is the most important thing. I lost days of sleep and like 20 pounds when trying to wean Ollie onto pellets. It was miserable. But you shall succeed!

It's wonderful that you're offering her lots of other stuff, pellets shouldn't be the only thing in her diet.

Oh, have you tried eating them in front of her? Or put them in a bowl, sit on the couch, and pretend to munch on them while exclaiming how yummy they are. Once Ollie thinks its my food and not hers she's always more apt to try/like it.

Hello Camille, Yes, I have tried eating them in front of her. I've even eaten them myself and made all the yummy noises.

Thanks. I won't give up that easy.

Before I was able to get Bokka eating Harrison Pelletes on his own, dry ones, I would have to get them wet in WARM water. Ofcourse every morning he was weighed. Just incase you dont know, Bokka is an Umbrella cockatoo. He will eat 8-12 Harrison pellets in the morning (wet) and in the evening )wet. He'd only have dried fruits and veggies and Harrison pellets in his food dish untill his evening meal came around which can be anywhere between 5pm-9pm(evening meal of wet pellets).

Often times to get them to eat more. You feed them only twice a day. This helps a lot. Its called Food Management. It helps picky birds more willing to eat food, and it helps the skinny or even robust birds to go to their proper weight.

Alway consult a vet before changing or altering a bird diet or the way it eats. Make sure your bird is 100% healthy said by the Avian Vet, before doing anything like this.

This is a safe way to help birds eat food. Also what people do when they are recalltraining their parrots and even clicker trainers do it this way.

Mercedez

You might try mixing pellets into birdie bread until you find a pellet Dozy likes. It often takes time and lots of waste to find a pellet that our birds like. I agree with feeding twice a day so Dozy is hungry when offered the pellets. It is stressful for us parronts when the progress is so slow.

Hello Mercedez, How much food do you leave in Bokka's dish in the morning? Does Bokka empty the dish by the time the evening meal? If so, does Bokka go without and for how long? What is a safe amount of time for them to be without food in their dish? I've done something similar. I'll ask either my husband or one of my daughters to remove her food dish about 3 o'clock in the afternoon hoping that when I come home she'll be good and hungry. She still doesn't eat the dry pellets, only the ones moist in apple juice.

Thanks for the advice.

I've also tried making birdie breads and she doesn't like my cooking

Hello Big Blues,

I think I am going to try the twice a day feeding. Very stressful! Thanks for your reply.

Hi Mercedez

Question about the dried veggies/fruits you give Bokka. Do you give Bokka Just Veggies/fruits?

Thanks

Karen

It's often difficult to judge how much food they're actually getting. Parrots are big food tossers, that's the way they're wired. Lots ends up on the cage floor no matter what. It's also hard to judge how much they need (for me). Very difficult to remember how small their bodies actually are. I suspect many of us routinely overfeed, just to make sure they have enough available (myself included). There is always a fair amount of waste either thrown to the bottom of the cage or left in the dish, but it seems they do get what they need. Keeping accurate track of their weight is the only way to know for sure, I guess.

It took me forever to get Echo to eat her pellets. She would only eat them if they were soaked and had coconut oil on them, and that was after the weeks I spent trying to get her to try them! Over a period of time, I decreased the amount of water in the pellets until they were jsut dry. I still feed them with coconut oil, but at least she eats them...

As Camille said, weight her in the mornings and evenings. Sometimes all it takes is for her to throw them out for her to try them. It might just take a few weeks- I feel for ya!