Limiting the number of treats for trick training

[meowzero]

So I've been training my bird with his favorite treats (sunflower seeds). I took him to the vet recently and everything looked fine. But my vet did not like the amount of seeds I was giving him. She said it was too much, and I should be giving him max 2 sunflower seeds per day. I understand where she is coming from, but I would like to hear you guys' thoughts on this.

My bird gets pellets and veggies in his cage, plus whatever else we're eating (a little bit) during dinner and lunch. But he loves doing tricks because he loves his sunflower seeds, and I must admit, he is eating a lot. I have tried to give him other, healthier treats as a reward for his tricks, but he just drops them.

So what do you guys do? How much treats do you give your birds? Is there a healthier alternative treats that I can try?

[Michael]

Fruit and Pellets

[GreenWing]

Meowzero, that avian vet would yell at me, too... I use sunflower seeds when training my bird, as well. She definitely gets more than 2 seeds! I better start using pellets instead.

[bluefeather98]

I use pellets mainly. Sometimes the occasional piece of nut or a bit of nutriberry, but pellets work well for me. She also goes crazy for dried blueberries! (no sulfites or added sugar of course)

[meowzero]

I saw Michael's video where he lets his birds choose between various treats and pellets. That video blew my mind. There's no way my bird would choose a pellet over a sunflower seed.

How would I start weaning him off his usual treats for pellets during trick training? I tried a bit in the morning, and he would take the pellets a few times because he's so hungry. But he would get cranky for not getting his usual goodies. He would start to bite when he would offer him pellets more.

[Michael]

Here's the thing. If you continuously challenge your parrot to do more for smaller treats, eventually the pellets become well worth it. Let's say at first you have to give a whole almond for doing one wave. Then you start moving to half pieces. Then with practice the bird will do it for a quarter almond, then eighth, and with time a tiny almond crumb. Then you take it even further and apply variable ratio reinforcement and the bird is doing 10 waves for a tiny sliver of almond at random. At some point on the way toward that, the pellet becomes a much more valuable treat. This isn't so much a deal for basic tricks but when the parrots are flying long exercise routines, it's good. I want my guys to get pellets for treats rather than seeds cause they do a lot of training and get a lot of treats. If they got that much junk food, their diet would be way out of balance. So they just work for pellets instead and with time have learned to prefer them anyway.

[KimberlyAnn]

If I do treats for tricks, I give really small treats. Mainly because I don't like waiting for her to eat LOL

Sometimes I use chia seeds, sesame seeds, fruit, or pieces of dried flowers. She's never liked sunflower seeds or sprouts. Weird. I love them!

Once when I was not looking, she grabbed a whole beak full of chia seeds from the jar. I don't know where she hides them!!!! She was eating chia seeds for a long long time for such a quick grab. They are small, but geez!

[Scotty]

2 sunflower seeds a day! LOL, that seems like way extreme....

Of course something I believe, it's going to depend on your birds metabolism, like if it eats constantly, or is more like a dog, eats like just once or twice a day.

BeBe my GCC is an eating machine, going at it all day long, and I'll give her training or playing tricks giving her up to like 15 seeds and she's healthy.

I'm not a VET and I'm certainly no expert like Mike, but as an example, if your bird only ate once a day and you feed him/her a handful of seeds which basically amounted to their meal for the day, then I could agree with the VET, but otherwise I'd say that's rubbish.

But if you're going to give them sunflower seeds I'd only given them raw organic!

So...

Slow metabolism bird that doesn't eat as much, don't give as many
High metabolism bird that eats a lot through out the day will be better, they'll burn it off and just provide them better food to follow, high quality and organic pellets and food, fruits and veggies, as much organic as possible...

Or as Mike mentioned training them into pellets would be good...

[marie83]

2 sunflower seeds a day! LOL, that seems like way extreme....

Of course something I believe, it's going to depend on your birds metabolism, like if it eats constantly, or is more like a dog, eats like just once or twice a day.

BeBe my GCC is an eating machine, going at it all day long, and I'll give her training or playing tricks giving her up to like 15 seeds and she's healthy.

I'm not a VET and I'm certainly no expert like Mike, but as an example, if your bird only ate once a day and you feed him/her a handful of seeds which basically amounted to their meal for the day, then I could agree with the VET, but otherwise I'd say that's rubbish.

But if you're going to give them sunflower seeds I'd only given them raw organic!

So...

Slow metabolism bird that doesn't eat as much, don't give as many
High metabolism bird that eats a lot through out the day will be better, they'll burn it off and just provide them better food to follow, high quality and organic pellets and food, fruits and veggies, as much organic as possible...

Or as Mike mentioned training them into pellets would be good...

sorry this is rubbish, sunflowers are not a healthy treat they are full of fat and little nutritional value. It has nothing to do with metabolism, how thin or fat you are or how much other stuff you eat. Thin people can be just as unhealthy as fat ones and you get fat people who eat extremely healthily- they just eat far too much.

[Pajarita]

If you keep on giving a tiny GCC 15 sunflowers seeds a day, you will end up with a bird with fatty liver disease guaranteed! GCCs need a very small amount of a good quality budgie mix and that means no sunflower seeds at all - they are mainly fruit eaters in the wild and all that oil and protein go right to their liver to be stored as fatty nodules.