Switching budgie to pellets

[TPishek]

In late August, my fiance and I purchased a budgerigar. Archimedes is about two years old by the vet's estimation, and has been on a seed-only diet for his entire life. After letting him settle in (3 weeks quarantine + a month after being introduced to the other bird) we started trying to switch him to a pelleted diet. He was slightly underweight from the stress of moving in but the vet gave us the go-ahead to transition to the new food. The only other bird I've owned (Jeffrey, the cockatiel, who had also been on seeds-only before we got him) transitioned to pellets very smoothly over a ten-day period, but 17 days after beginning the switch Archimedes is still largely refusing to eat his pellets, instead scrounging for dropped food anytime he's out of his cage. He has dropped a good bit of weight (I don't have a scale, but I can tell by palpating his keelbone) which worries me. What should I do? Do I go back to seeds for the time being, or are there some tricks I can use to convince him to eat his pellets?

[Michael]

Go back to seeds. First of all budgies are very difficult to impossible to switch to pellets. Second of all, I'm surprised the vet is recommending it. From what I've been hearing, it is debatable whether a pellet diet is even suitable for cockatiels/budgies. It's a double edged sword. Too much seeds and there are risks to the liver. Too much pellets and there are risks to the kidneys. I'm not sure if an optimal pellet diet has yet been developed for those kinds of parakeets. I can't give you a recommendation of diet but I do want to mention that we never were able to switch Duke over to pellets. I really think these little birds will starve themselves to death before eating that stuff.

[laducockatiel]

Go back to seeds. First of all budgies are very difficult to impossible to switch to pellets. Second of all, I'm surprised the vet is recommending it. From what I've been hearing, it is debatable whether a pellet diet is even suitable for cockatiels/budgies. It's a double edged sword. Too much seeds and there are risks to the liver. Too much pellets and there are risks to the kidneys. I'm not sure if an optimal pellet diet has yet been developed for those kinds of parakeets. I can't give you a recommendation of diet but I do want to mention that we never were able to switch Duke over to pellets. I really think these little birds will starve themselves to death before eating that stuff.

Yeah, Michaels right. I do let Ladu eat pellets and his bowl has about 40% pellets and the rest seed but he is not on an all pelleted diet due to the reasons Michael described. The only reason I feed Ladu pellets, is cos he really likes them but if you feed veggies and fruit and other healthy meals every day, I'm sure your budgie will be more than healthy

[TPishek]

Thanks for the advice-- we'll do that. Our tiel loves his pellets, he has those free choice in his cage and then gets supplemented seeds and greens outside during playtime. We'll find another way to make sure Archimedes gets what he needs.

[HungryBird]

The only pellets my budgies would eat for a very long time was Harrison's Adult Lifetime Fine. Worth trying in my opinion. It might take a while for your budgie to try them though, I know my guys take a long time to try certain new foods. It's really important to make sure your budgie has other food he already likes so he doesn't starve himself. When my guys were still in their we-refuse-to-eat-anything-you-want-us-to phase I found that they would eat mixed veggies like corn, peas, and carrots and they also loved dark green leafy veggies hung from the bars like kale or bok choy. Good luck!