by Pajarita » Mon Mar 30, 2015 11:50 am
Are you mixing a bit of budgie seed into the gloop? Because it helps when they see something they easily identify as food mixed in with stuff they don't know, like the grains and such.
Now, as long as you are feeding him 1/4 cup (measuring, not a coffee mug, mind you and absolutely level) of the budgie seed for dinner, he is not starving. But if you continue giving him 'treats' in the middle of the day, he will continue not eating his gloop early in the morning.
Also, are you using the Kashi pilaf? Because it has rye which a lot of my birds dislike.
As to how long, it usually takes me just a few days to get the new birds to eat it but I have the advantage of having birds that have been with me for a long time which all love the gloop and, when the new bird sees the 'old' bird eating it, it tries it, likes it, and continues eating it. But a quaker I have now took more than a month to start eating... I always use the quarantine period to transition them because, once they are loose in the birdroom, it's hard for me to determine whether they are eating everything in the gloop and, until this quaker, all of the new birds had always started eating the gloop way before their quarantine period was over. This bird would wait every single day for her seeds at night and eat nothing during the entire day! I was not only frustrated over the whole thing, I was also worried because I did not want to keep her in a cage any longer (I hate cages!). So, in desperation and out of concern for her, I let her out and you know what? She was eating not only the gloop but also the produce in 24 hours! I guess she hated been caged and that affected her appetite...