MY SUN CONURE WONT EAT GREENS!! HELP

[sunconuresunny00]

hi my sun conure sunny I cannot get him to eat greens what's the trick??? I've tried Cale, mustard greens and broccoli and DONT KNOW WHAT TO DO??? PLEASE HELP THANK YOU!!

[Wolf]

The primary key is persistence and patience. The time that your birds parents would have taught him what to eat has passed and that makes it harder to teach them to eat a good variety of fruits, vegetables and greens.

The best way to teach your bird to start eating these items is for you to eat them with him. You should use all that you know to assist you in this such as starting first thin in the morning after having remove the food from his cage the night before after he goes to sleep. This means that he will be at his hungriest first thing in the morning and you prepare two sets of the food that you want him to eat that morning and sit down with him and start eating yours in front of him until he asks for and then demands some of the food, then you pick up a piece of his and show him that it is the same as you have been eating and give it to him to eat. He will either try it or drop it. Go through all of the different foods that you prepared, there should be a fruit, a vegetable and a leafy green. Go through them all three times and then leave some of them in his cage for him to try later and then in about half an hour to an hour later give him his normal breakfast, but leave the fresh produce in his cage. Do this every morning with a different variety of fresh produce. There is no telling how long it will take, for many of us it is just a long term thing we do every day. You can not fail as long as you never give up.

[sunconuresunny00]

oh ok what are u referring to as a normal breakfast???

[Wolf]

I feed my parrots first thing in the morning one fresh raw fruit, one fresh raw vegetable and one fresh raw leafy green about an hour later I feed them their regular breakfast, which in my case is gloop and I provide enough of the fresh raw produce and enough of the gloop for all day long and then in the evening I give them their dinner which consists of an appropriate seed mix and a tree nut according to their species and size. Since I also use the first food offerings, which are produce, to teach them to eat a more varied diet, they don't always eat the produce, so their normal breakfast is the gloop.

[Screech]

What is gloop?

[Pajarita]

Gloop is a meal made out whole grains cooked al dente mixed with thoroughly cooked white beans and/or lentils and chopped vegetables (look in the diet section, lots of good recipes there).

Please no mustard greens and only blue curly kale (not the regular) once a week. The mustard greens are very high in oxalic acid and the kale in sorbitol. Wolf already told you the 'tricks' on teaching them to eat new things (timing, sharing, presentation, patience and persistence) but it's also useful to start with things that they like better so, when it comes to greens, raw broccoli (make sure it's nice and firm) and crunchy-stalky greens are, usually, their preference. Try the very heart of the romaine lettuce and things like bok choy, Swiss chard, etc (mine LOVE the red Swiss Chard but don't give it to him every day because it's also high in oxalic acid).

[Screech]

My sun likes by spinach

[Screech]

He won't eat frozen veggies,either....only fresh. Tried just defrosting nd also cooking, but won't eat either.

[Wolf]

The difference is the texture of the vegetables. Try cutting some of the fresh vegetables that he really likes into the same size as the frozen ones and then mixing equal amounts of the frozen ones with the fresh ones and let him have a smaller portion of the mixed ones than just the fresh ones. Be patient and you may be able to get him to start eating both of them. Alternatively heat the frozen ones, drain and mix the same way and see if you can get him to eat them that way.

[Pajarita]

My sun likes by spinach

Spinach is also very high in oxalic acid, iron and, at least here in the States, one of the vegetables with most chemicals on them (I don't feed spinach to my birds -not ever).