Parakeets - advice, opinions, guidance etc

[Duck_feeder]

Quote:
If you still want to try switching your budgies to pellets, you can try what I did:

Make muffins for your birds but instead of using flour, use a mixture of ground up pellets and seeds. I usually, substitute water for milk, use less oil than the recipe calls for, and use honey instead of sugar. Only use baking soda that does NOT contain aluminum!! Using both ground up seed and pellets in the muffins is crucial! The taste of the seeds makes them moe inclined to eat them while introducing them to the taste of pellets!
Mix in some whole seeds into the batter before baking (use a lot of seeds for the first batch so there are plenty of seeds for them to see on the surface)
Put the muffin in a food cup along with seeds.

It might take a while, but eventually they will start tearing up the muffins to eat the seeds. (once one bird decides that it's food, the other birds will try it too)
Once they are picking the seeds out of the muffins, stop giving them seeds other than the ones in the muffins.
Keep this up until the start to eat the muffins and not just the seeds in them. (even if they never eat the muffins, at least they are foraging for their food)

Once they start eating the muffins, use less whole seeds in the mix and start adding whole pellets to the batter.
Slowly use less whole seeds and more pellets and put whole pellets in their food cup.
If you're worried they aren't eating enough, give them seed at night about an hour before their bedtime. Take away the seeds first thing in the morning when you give them fresh muffins.

Eventually they'll eat the pellets and you can stop giving them muffins all the time!

 

[AquaEyes]

I think the best way to convert a bird to pellets is to do the following:

Remove seed dish at night before bedtime.

Offer only pellets and water in the morning, and leave the pellets in the cage all day. Do not give any seeds.

Just before bedtime, put the dish with seeds in the cage. Allow the bird to eat as much as it wants. Remove the seed dish when the bird is done eating. Cover bird for bed.

Again, leave only pellets and water in the cage throughout the day. Offer seeds only just before bed. Remove when bird is done eating.

Observe the amount of pellets in the dish. When you start seeing a decrease in the amount of pellets, and/or pellet "dust" in the dish, you know the bird is trying the pellets. When this happens, start reducing the amount of seed offered before bedtime. Eventually get down to a "treat-level" for seed when the bird is observed to eat pellets.



~Chris

 

[emryst]

Okay so I have a few more questions.

When we take him out the cage he will sit on our hand for a few seconds before he flies away. When he flies away though he runs into the wall occasionally. I can't imagine this is good?? Is there anything that can be done to prevent that? We close the blinds on our windows and he hasn't run into a window at all.

Also we mixed his feed so it is pellets and the stores bulk parakeet mix. He only seems to be eating the millet though.

And because that is the only thing he eats I end up throwing most of the food out because I don't want him to starve! Would he starve if I didn't change it every day? Or would he be more inclined to try other things?

Also he won't eat fresh food so far. I have tried lettuce and broccoli and he has zero interest.

 

[AquaEyes]

Quote:
If you want to tame him down, first start out in a small room, like a bedroom, and shut the door and close the curtains/blinds/etc. on all the windows. Put a spare sheet over your bed (to protect your good bedding underneath), and have some treats and toys spread out on the bed. Bring the bird's cage into the room, and just open the cage door. Let him come out on his own. Try to make the bed seem so interesting (from a budgie's perspective) that he will be drawn to coming to you. Reward him with a favorite food (and don't let him have that favorite food in his dish -- save it for rewards only). Make interacting with you something he associates with a yummy treat, and make that yummy treat available ONLY when he interacts with you. When he calms down enough that he comes to you a lot on his own, then try letting him out in a larger room. In the beginning, keep the shades down to avoid him crashing into windows. But realize that if he's content where he is, he's not likely to fly around like crazy.

If you mix the pellets and seeds in the same dish, he will pick out his favorite seeds and toss the rest, just like you're reporting. If you change the food every day, he's able to eat only what he likes and not anything else. It takes a lot for a budgie to starve. He certainly won't if you follow what I posted earlier (keeping only pellets all day in his cage, giving him some seed just before bed, and then removing all food until morning. Repeat with pellets only again, some seed at night, remove all food, repeat...).

I work in a lab where we test auditory perception in budgies and zebra finches. Basically, the birds are not fed in the morning, but each has two 40-minute rounds in a testing booth, where they hear a sound and peck the correct key and get a food reward. They do as many trials as they wish (they peck a key to start one) and stop when they like. They are weighed every day just before their first trial, and at the end of the day, after their two trials have been completed, they are given a small amount of food before we close the lab for the day. The birds are basically kept slightly hungry (but not starving) because that makes them more willing to "work for their food." You need to do something similar when converting a bird to a new diet. If you keep letting your budgie eat as much of its favorite food as he wants, he will be unlikely to try something new. However, if he hasn't eaten anything in a few hours, he will be more likely to "experiment" with something new. Once he learns that this "weird new pellet stuff" is actually food, he will be less afraid of eating it. To err on the side of safety, you provide seed in a separate dish just before bed, and remove it after he has his fill. Keep the pellets in a separate dish, and give them in the morning. Leave no food in the cage over night. Do this, and most likely it will work. There are some birds that are more stubborn than others, but even they will learn eventually. If you try something else, like mixing old with new in the same dish, your bird will never be hungry enough to get out of its comfort zone and try something else.

Good luck!



~Chris

 

[emryst]

Still working on the pellet and fresh food...

Magellan really enjoys his seeds unfortunately.

But here he is:

He will perch on our fingers now and allow us to take him out of his cage... as long as he is right next to it!

But if he flies away like he did this morning I let him perch where he wants for awhile. He is currently sitting on a desk fan (not turned on!).

Also the plant is not within his reach! (AND it is a bulb so it already bloomed and is dying... i am not killing it)

 

[AquaEyes]

If your bird is stuck on eating seeds, I highly recommend the sprouted diet I mentioned earlier. Birds will recognize it as food because it looks familiar (it's still seeds, just that they are soaked and starting to grow). Dusting them with the green supplement powder will cover all the bases as far as vitamins and minerals.

 

[Cha Cha Chicken]

I paid $60 for a hand raised, tame, opaline wild type recessive pied American budgie parakeet from an in town breeder. she is very tame, sweet, and healthy, and the breeder genuinely cares for her birds, not just interested in the $. She is in Colorado, don't know where you are, but if you are around that area..... here is her website:
http://puppiesareprozac.com/budgie-parakeet/