Wont eat fruits or vegetables

[BridgetTracy]

Puff won't eat any fruits or vegetables, except dried papaya which is his favorite food so I use it as treats. Also he doesn't eat much pellets. I tried mixing his old food ( kaytee fiesta mix; it has a lot of junk in it ) in the new pellets (Harrison's high potency fine; I'm not even sure if he knows it is edible). He just eats the kaytee and leaves the Harrison's. In the morning I'm going to try wetting the Harrison's. Now back to the fruits and veggies. I've offered him grapes, blueberries, strawberry, romaine lettuce, carrots, and green beans so far. I tried putting small pieces of lettuce and carrots in the food bowl and I think he ate some of it, but he won't take it if it's not with his other food. Any tips on getting him to try them? I'm going to start making gloop to get him the nutrition he hasn't been getting from not eating the fruits and veggies.

[BridgetTracy]

And he also won't even try/ get near nutriberries. So now I have a whole tub of them

[Wolf]

It is OK, I know that I sort of expected this and could have mentioned it, but I did not because I could not be sure as some birds will jump right in and eat anything that you put in front of them. This is a very common issue, and although it can be a pain in the %$&, it can also be a good thing because you really don't want to change their diet too quickly as it is actually very stressful to their digestive system.

The reason for this is simply that he does not recognize these new foods as food because he was not taught about any of them.

Parrots are altrical ( hope I spelled it right), this just means that when they are born that they are helpless and totally dependent on their parents to teach them everything. They do not even know how to eat or drink until the parent teaches them how to. After they first fledge and are strong enough to go out with their parents, they are taught not only what foods to eat, but how to find the food and how to tell when it is ready to eat.

You did well when you mixed his old pellets in with the new ones as that is exactly what you should have done, you were just not patient enough. I could go into a long explanation about this, but let me try this way instead. Teaching a parrot anything is a process and matters of diet can be one of the longest ones. I have had my birds for a little longer than 3 years and although I started teaching them about foods they can eat right away, I am still teaching them to try new foods. Patience! Persistence and more patience!

Mix the pellets 30% old brand to 70% new pellets and feed for dinner. Gloop, begin with just the partly cooked whole grains and mix in up to half of the old pellets until the bird begins to eat the whole grains and then start reducing the old pellets and start adding the vegetables one at a time until they are eating this and then add the next vegetable until you are making the entire gloop recipe and there are no pellets in it. Fresh fruits and vegetables!! These are probably the hardest, but can also be the most fun. This is because you teach them to eat them by eating them yourself. This is probably best done with the bird on a table in front of you. But you will want to kind of " protect" the fresh raw fruits and vegetables from your bird. This is because you are apparently going to eat all of this wonderful food by yourself while he watches. Actually you are going to have some small pieces of them ready for him to eat in front of you, that you are going to allow him to steal from you. The thing is that you don't want to make it too easy for him to steal a piece, make him work at it a little. This will make him want it all the more and make it more likely that he will actually eat some of it. You will, of course put the fruits and vegetables in his cage for him to eat at his leisure, but that is after you get him to steal a few pieces first. This is basically the same thing that the parrots parents do to teach them about food.

The gloop and fresh produce are for breakfast and all day and the pellet for dinner.

[Pajarita]

The word is 'altricial' but it was close enough .

Wolf is right, it takes years to get a parrot to eat a large range of veggies and fruits. Just to give you an example, I give my birds blueberries once a week (they are highly nutritious!) and I had a CAG that took five years to start eating them even though she was surrounded by birds that loved them. It's a lot of work and a lot of waste but you really have no choice but to keep on putting it there.

A word of caution, high potency pellets are WAAAAAYYYYY too rich a food for a conure (very high in protein and too rich in nutrition - more is not better when it comes to birds).

[Navre]

A word of caution, high potency pellets are WAAAAAYYYYY too rich a food for a conure (very high in protein and too rich in nutrition - more is not better when it comes to birds).

I talked to Harrison's about this. They said that the Lifetime was developed primarily for small birds because the high potency was usually wrong for small birds like conures.

[Pajarita]

Personally, John, even if I used pellets and even if I had a bird that requires higher protein, I would never use the high potency.

[Navre]

Personally, John, even if I used pellets and even if I had a bird that requires higher protein, I would never use the high potency.

I think the high potency have much more fat and about the same protein.

Lifetime is 15% protein/ 5.5% fat
High Potency is 18% protein/ 15% fat.

Of course, those are minimums, so unless you do your own analysis, you don't really know. And they may even vary from batch to batch.

[BridgetTracy]

Thank you Wolf for all of the advice. I will keep trying to mix the food and will make bloop later today.

About the high potency harrisons, should I switch?

[Wolf]

I really don't know what to tell you in regards to pellets. I do not use them for my birds. The reason is simply that not only are they extremely dry when birds naturally eat high moisture foods, but I do not like the ingredients of them. Zupreem has one of the worst reputations for using sub standard ingredients of all of the pelleted food manufacturers as far as I am aware of.

Although I can't say that I actually like most of the seed mixes much better than I like pellets nor do I like how dry the seed mixes are, I can at least find mixes suitable for all of my different birds that are all seeds without all of the artificial junk and without soy.

The choice between seeds and pellets is controversial at best with staunch and passionate supporters on both sides. It is a debate that I really prefer to not be a part of beyond that which I have already stated. The choice is yours to make, the only real advice that I can give you is to read the ingredient list for every food product that you consider for your bird and to take the time to research your birds natural diet as well as the ingredients of any food that you are thinking of using and then choose whatever you think is the best for your bird. That is what I do.

[Pajarita]

Yep, the decision is yours. I made mine after lots and lots of research on their natural diets and decided that pellets are not the best dietary option for my birds. I want my animals to get the best I can offer and, in my personal opinion, when it comes to birds, pellets ain't it! Sun conures eat a lot of fruits (meaning low protein, low fat, high moisture and high fiber) and, going by my personal experience, most conures seem easier to 'convince' than other species when it comes to fruits. My sun conure, a ten year old female named Sunny which has mild hemochromatosis from a bad diet in her previous home and which has been with me for just a few months, ate blueberries this morning for the first time so it did not take long at all for her...