Mary Allen
Some parrots refuse certain foods. How can you get them used to pellets, for example?
You want to do something good for your birds, put together a wide range of food, and then this! The new, expensive pellets lie untouched in the bowl, juicy pieces of orange were unceremoniously thrown on the floor. Only the sunflower seeds were all picked out and eaten. Now the pair of gray parrots are sitting satiated and self-satisfied in the upper part of the aviary, cleaning each other’s feathers. Versatile nutrition was in the bowl but didn’t make it into the bird’s gizzard.
Parrots are particularly picky and often very conservative. It is therefore important to provide young animals with a wide range of foods. A gray parrot that only grows up with sunflower seeds and bananas will later ignore other things. It can go so far that such birds do not even go to the food bowl if there is suddenly a cherry in it.
Time and Food Envy Help
The acceptance of the feed also depends on the quantity and the form of administration. If you always feed enough of everything, you shouldn’t be surprised if the parrots simply choose their favorite food. A parrot that has always eaten grains will seldom eat the pellets presented in the same bowl if given more than enough grains. But if he finds a modest portion of grains with fruit in the morning so he’s hungry again in the afternoon, he’ll nibble on the pellets served that evening and find that they’re tasty too.
A bit of hunger helps acclimate parrots to a variety of foods! Patience too, because even if a parrot has refused pellets for a week, that does not mean that it will generally not accept them. You might try other pellets, but you should persistently continue to offer them. Most parrots will suddenly accept them as part of their diet. This has also been shown in communal aviaries in zoos. A wide range is always served there. But time, curiosity, and jealousy about food help. The parrots see others nibbling on pellets. Since they are always available, they try this food too.
If parrots do not eat certain types of vegetables or fruits from a cocktail, then they should be given only one type in the morning with the grain food, for example, fennel, and in the evening with the pellets another type, for example, pomegranate. If the offer is changed daily, the birds have been offered 14 different types of vegetables and fruits over the course of a week. If they only find one species or variety in the feeding bowl, there is a greater chance that they will taste it – and suddenly realize that it doesn’t taste so bad after all.
Or you can cut the fruit only slightly and hand it over whole so that the parrots can gnaw pieces out. Just because parrots don’t eat carrots for a few weeks doesn’t mean they don’t like the vegetable. Suddenly it will again be the first to be greedily received. Either parrot are looking for a certain quality, or – which is more likely – they know exactly when they need which component for their organism.
The amount of food also varies throughout the year. The temperature at which birds are kept is very important. There is an art to always handing out so much that very little is left over. This requires patience. But it usually pays off, whether with pellets or certain types of fruit and vegetables. If the fosterlings eat a varied diet, they remain healthy in the long term.