baby grey diet problem

[Genn The Grey]

Ok,

when i brought Genn my from the breeder, he was exactly 83 days old, the night i took him he was fed by hand from the breeder, and he told me dont worry he can eat alone, and he told me to buy a mix that has seeds, dried fruits and pellets all in one also told me to feed him apples for the first 2 weeks daily, the thing is that the bird doesnt eat anything except seeds and fresh fruits, he eats apple, pomegranate, banana and cucumber. Also today I ordered spaghetti for myself and he jumped from perch and started eating with me.

I ordered Harrison's bird food "pellets" from amazon.com "since its not available where i live", but he didnt even want to go near. Right now im giving him fresh fruits and green vegs daily, along the food mix which he only pick the seeds from.

what should i do to get him to eat pellets ? I'm afraid to leave him only with pellets all day he might not eat, and he is baby 115 days old now, breeder told me never leave him without food.

any advice ?

[liz]

Even when a toddler is big enough to pick up food and put it in his mouth he will not refuse some hand feeding.

Knowing he was hand fed you could have given him comfort with a feeding. You still can.

Pellets are ground up seed. Birds like to pick through their own seed like a child eating his corn before his spinach. Which by the way you should not fed to them because of the high iron count.

I feed all my birds basically the same food just cut in different sizes to fit them. I cut fresh or frozen vegetables every morning for them. (The horse gets the parts not used for the birds) I also soften grain in boiling water over night to feed in the morning (after it is cool). They eat their breakfast and play in it but go back and snack on it all day.

Birds do their last eating just before sundown to make sure their not hungry during the night. This is a good time to feed a good low protein seed mix. (High protein makes them hormonal.) The birds dive into it like it is a desert and I know they are full when they go to roost.

Birds are flockers and do everything together. Eating is also a social time. He will eat more at a time if you eat with him. He will also try new foods from your plate while you are eating. I do not add butter or salt to my food until they get their share off my plate of legal foods.

[Wolf]

At this age your Grey is still very young and probably does not have the beak strength to eat more than the occasional pellet and should be getting soft foods at least two or three times each day in addition to a variety of fresh raw fruits and vegetables for all day long and then a seed mix for dinner.

There are several ways that you could go about doing this, one of which is to get some Kashi rice pilaf and cook the grains and then run some raw vegetables through a food processor to chop them up very fine and mix the pilaf and pureed vegetables together and feed this to the bird for all day with another dish for the fresh fruit.

Another thing that you could do is to get some weaning formula for him and feed him 10% of his weight of this formula first and then the mixture that I mentioned for the rest of the day and then another feeding of the weaning formula in the afternoon and the seed mix for dinner.

I do not feed my birds pellets or any dehydrated foods other than their seed mix.

[Pajarita]

It's Kashi 7 Whole Grains Pilaf (not rice) but Wolf is correct, I would feed soft foods like gloop or couscous, polenta, oatmeal, etc mixed in with either chopped veggies or even pureed (as in baby food, the kind that comes in jars) but I would also supplement his intake with formula about once a day (not only to round up the nutrition but also as a bonding technique). Seeds or pellets (I don't feed pellets, I don't think they are the best dietary option for parrots) should be offered only for dinner.