by Pajarita » Wed May 16, 2018 9:52 am
Geez, no, you can't deprive a bird of food! They have very high metabolisms and need to eat A LOT, especially when they are young which I assume your birds to be if you just got them from a store or a breeder. And you can't free-feed them any kind of protein food [seeds, pellets, nutriberries, etc]. They need to eat cooked whole grain mixed with chopped veggies, a leafy green and a piece of fruit for breakfast and a budgie seed mix for dinner. This is not only much healthier for them but it will also allow you to tame them and train them because they will be eager for the seed or little piece of nut you can use as reward for training. But you need to tame them first and before you tame them, you need to make them trust you and this is where the advice given above comes in handy. You need to keep them at a solar schedule with exposure to dawn and dusk and you can't free-feed protein because, otherwise, they would be hormonal all the time and hormonal birds cannot be tamed or trained [they bite].
Now, lovies are great eaters of fruit and greens - not so much of veggies but they do love corn on the cob, grape tomato, celery, peas, etc. The thing with lovies is that they are hardly ever handfed and they are aviary birds which is a completely different story from a handfed companion parrot. They can be tamed and they can be taught to eat a good, varied diet but it takes time, persistence and consistency as well as planning so work on getting a daily routine where they eat their breakfast early in the am and their dinner when the sun is setting and, in the morning, after they eat, spend time in the same room with them, talking, singing, whistling and give them a treat every now and then from your fingers but, if they don't take it, just leave it in a place they can reach because these are not 'rewards', they are 'friendship tokens'.