How to reduce hormonal behavior?

[marie83]

Grey Moon wrote:

Then, at breakfast, she flies to the little table we set up for her meals and eats.... We 'fly' back home and she flies to the table to eat dinner....

This is the first I've come across a bird being feed scheduled meals rather than free-feeding. Would you mind expanding on that subject a bit?

Thanks.

There are quite a few of us on here that feed meals instead of free feeding. We find it better for several reasons.
- it give the bird a reason to want to go back to the cage when its time to go back.
- it helps with training as they will be more motivated by treats
- it allows us to monitor what are birds eat more accurately if we weight portions before and after feeding
- there is much less waste as we aren't overfeeding so it doesnt go off
- there is much less waste because are birds are less inclined to play with, drop or grind up their food into powder.


I used to free feed (and still do on the odd occasion), I much prefer the scheduled feeding purely for the ability to monitor food intake better. When I was free feeding I wouldn't have had a clue how little Harlie my 'tiel was eating recently for a few days. Scheduled, weighed portions meant I knew the same day she lost her appetite.


The only advantage of free feeding is if you get held up for some reason your bird can still eat whilst your absent.

[Grey_Moon]

Marie pretty much outlined everything I was going to say.

They don't eat all day and constantly having the body working to digest food can be taxing.
As well, birds home alone all day can and do overeat out of boredom.

I find on scheduled meals out-of-cage meals Jacko is less picky, works up a good appetite and it allows me to maximize her nutrition because I don't worry about spoilage so the food is always fresh and as least processed as I can offer it. I also know what she's eating, how much of one food vs the other and I can also get an accurate body weight in the morning because she's not full of food.

The other *huge* advantage of the way I feed---which is good for both you and bird is the cage stays much cleaner and more hygenic---little to no food or food bits wiped on perches or stuck to the bars or crammed into nooks n crannies that sorta sits there and can be difficult to clean and becomes a health issue.