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Help switching pellets?

Talk about bird illnesses and other bird health related issues. Seeds, pellets, fruits, vegetables and more. Discuss what to feed your birds and in what quantity. Share your recipe ideas.

Help switching pellets?

Postby m8r-k8lwrp » Mon Oct 10, 2016 7:11 pm

I'm switching from zupreem harvest feast to roudybush daily maintenance, My birds will grab a piece out of my hand and chew it up but i cant tell if they are just chewing it to powder or actually eating it, they dont seem to eat it out of their bowls. I have been putting some of their old food under the new food and they just eat the old food and dont seem to touch the new food. What should I do to encourage them to eat the new food? I've been watching their weight with a cheap scale i had lying around and they seem to have each lost about a gram (probably a coincidence as my scale is absolute garbage).
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Re: Help switching pellets?

Postby liz » Tue Oct 11, 2016 7:13 am

Why pellets? They like seed better. Most of us give seed in the evening. It is like a desert to them after eating gloop and fresh or frozen fruit and veggies all day. I know my birds go to bed with full bellies after eating the seed.
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Re: Help switching pellets?

Postby Pajarita » Tue Oct 11, 2016 11:38 am

Well, I don't feed pellets because, after over 20 years of research into their natural diets, I reached the conclusion that pellets are not the best dietary option for them (and I want the best for my animals!) but they are particularly bad for the little species like the ones you have because they are too high in protein for them (tiels should never get more than 12% and GCCs are, mainly, fruit eaters which means low protein, low fat, high fiber, high moisture -the exact opposite of pellets!). Aside from that, neither brand is really any good. If I had to recommend one pellet, it would be Tops and no other because it's the only one made without soy, with organic, human grade ingredients and food-derived vitamins. But even those cannot be free-fed, they have to be used only for dinner.

Switching a bird to a new pellet takes a long time and it needs to be done very gradually, first you use 3/4 of the old ones and just 1/4 of the new one, then as they start eating the new pellet (you need to count each kind when you first put it in and then count the number left-over after they go to sleep), you increase it to half and half and so on and so forth.

Now, this time of the year and if you are keeping your bird to a solar schedule (as you should!), birds gain weight in preparation for the 'resting' season (winter), they are not supposed to lose any so, please, slow down the conversion and make sure they are gaining instead of losing.
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