Feeding Schedule for Budgies?

[kazooiebaby]

Hi there! I was wondering if anyone who owns budgies has experience with scheduled feelings?
Currently, my 4 month old Budgie is freefed, but after reading/watching Michaels videos and articles about the cons of free feeding I decided it would be better to schedule feed her, it would also help with some trick training were trying!

Is there an exact amount of food she should be supplied daily, and how many times per day? She is on Harrison's High Potency Superfine pellets and is offered some seeds at night as well as veggies throughout the day. If it helps, she is 32 grams (American Budgie).

Thanks in advance!

[Wolf]

My budgies are fed twice a day, the first time is about an hour after sunrise and the other is about an hour before sunset. Now I don't feed any of my birds pellets, but even if I did, I would not feed them to my budgies. This is because budgies are from a desert region and as such have water conserving abilities that have evolved in them over time and pellets interfere with these natural functions in the budgie, so that pellets are not recommended for them. Also the high potency pellets are not normally recommended for birds that are not very young, sick, malnourished or very old. At least they have not been recommended for years and I have not checked recently to see if that has changed or not. There have been changes in pellets within the past few years and it is difficult to keep up with all of them.
I feed my budgies fresh leafy greens and fresh raw veggies first thing in the morning followed by Gloop, which is a homemade cooked food consisting of whole grains, vegetables and white beans and lentils. They get enough of these for all day long and then they get a seed mix in the evening. My birds are never without something to eat except when they go to sleep for the night. All birds should always have some food to eat all of the time that they are awake because of their metabolism being so much higher than ours and the smaller the bird the higher the metabolic rate it has, which means it must eat more often. I start off with a heaping tablespoon for my two budgies and adjust according to how much they have left by dinner time and I give them two teaspoons of their seed mix for dinner. My budgies live together so the food servings are for both of them and not for each of them.
Now I am familiar with Michaels ideas on food management and can't say that I agree with it. I do agree that birds should not be free fed pellets or seeds as they are too high in protein and fat and that free feeding them will cause heart disease, kidney disease and liver disease in birds. If you were to feed the food that I do at the times that I do the only thing you need to do is find a high value food for treats and make sure that you only use it for treats and then watch the timing of your training sessions. Mid morning might be a good time and then mid afternoon especially if you have had them out for an hour or so for exercise and bonding time as they will be a bit hungrier then and more receptive to the treats as a reward.

[Pajarita]

Yep, I agree 100% with everything that Wolf has replied. I also don't feed pellets to any of my birds as they are not the best dietary option for them but are specially bad for tiels and budgies. As to Michael's techniques, well, for one thing, Michael is dealing with completely different species of birds, not budgies with their super fast metabolism. For another (and I might be wrong on this), Michael doesn't seem to provide his birds with a lot of fresh food on a daily basis and when you feed almost exclusively pellets, they lose their high value. And last but not least, Michael's birds are part of his cottage industry so he needs them to perform when he shows them and the only way to ensure this is to make them a bit hungry (and this is one aspect of Michael's training techniques that has gotten him in real hot water with avian behaviorists), but a 'regular' person who keeps birds for no other motive than love for them would not really care if the bird doesn't perform perfectly every single time. But, in any case, when you feed gloop, mash, chop or whatever for breakfast and all day picking, and give the high protein food only for dinner, you don't need to make them hungry to perform because they will gladly do it for a high value item reward. They might not do it 100% of the time, but they will certainly do it 95% of it. Now, be careful about training a budgie because they are highly flock oriented and living alone is already a source of high stress to them...