What To Do When Bird Is Getting Picky?

[Scotty]

Well BeBe my GCC seemed to like TOPS when I first bought it, for the first few days she was chomping away, now she will hardly touch it.

Besides the TOPS pellets that sit in the cage in the bowl, I would place BeBe with a plaype on top of the cage and through out the day give some veggies, fruits, mixed seeds and grains, and well just mix it up, as long as it was healthy, always something nice to eat besides the TOPS.

Not it seems BeBe has got it in that tiny little head to only take the food I give through out the day instead of the TOPS, so I stopped this, now I'll only give one small addition of food, like something that is just one sitting to eat, like a few bites of something healthy to try and make her realize this is the extras but that she needs to eat her pellets, which is her main food and if she doesn't then there are no extras...

So what has everyone else done when you bird starts getting picky and won't eat their pellet food?


THANKS

[Eurycerus]

Sometimes nika won't eat her pellets or sometimes any of her food for one meal. How long has it been? I think they just very cranky or something occasionally. I got all worried but then she ate ravenously the next meal time.

[Scotty]

Sometimes nika won't eat her pellets or sometimes any of her food for one meal. How long has it been? I think they just very cranky or something occasionally. I got all worried but then she ate ravenously the next meal time.

I'd say we're only talking about eating during the day and then at night or later in the day BeBe eats a little, so maybe 6-8 hours without eating them...

So I'm thinking I need to make these extra meals, veggies, fruits, etc, less often so BeBe starts to realize it's the pellets or nothing, hehe...

[Eurycerus]

Yeah you're probably overfeeding her. I personally only feed my girl two meals a day and then treats when we hang out. Her meals consists of vegetables and pellets and she generally eats pretty much everything. I fed her way too many treats one day and she didn't really eat dinner and I realized later why.

[marie83]

A couple of days without extras wont hurt her if you think it is just pickiness, she will eat if there is no other option unless she is sick. Weigh the pellets when you feed her and weigh them again after to monitor her intake, she may be eating more than you realise if you dont already weigh her portions. Also keep a close eye on her bodyweight.

She may be just being picky but it may also be a sign something is wrong, its a bit of a pain weighing stuff but it is worth it because then you know exactly whats going on with their eating habits straight away. Harlie is a natural born pig with her pellets and seed but has completely gone off her pellets, without weighing the food I wouldn't have realised she wasn't eating any at all. She appeared to be eating seed when it was offered with no problems but because I weigh it I know she is only eating 2-3g a day- nowhere near enough and I could deal with it quickly. Birds are the same as any other animal and will pick favorites, when they are sick they may not eat at all or may only choose food that tempts them.

I'm not saying your bird is sick but it is a matter you need to keep a close eye on. Not just now but for the future. When I first started keeping birds there were very very few pelleted diets available and not a single book suggested feeding anything other than seed with a bit of fruit, veg and the odd bit of human food. None of them suggested monitoring intake either by weighing the food. If this had happened back then I'm sure it would have taken a few days to cotton on she wasn't eating as much, weighing each meal can put you on alert immediately which can only ever be a good thing. That said it is much easier to monitor pellets visually as there are no empty shells to hide the food underneath but its far better to have an accurate measure, guesstimates don't tend to work too well for most people.

[Grey_Moon]

You've got a couple of things going wrong here:

1: Offering food all day
-This in and of itself encourages picky eating because the bird never gets hungry enough to attempt eating anything but the foods it likes. It will skip eating things it finds less rewarding (greens, other veggies...in your case TOPS) because it knows that in a short while there will be more yummy treats, so it holds out for those and gets hungry.

2: Portion Sizes
-I assume that your bird is getting way more food than is required. The problem with this ties into the first point above in that if there's a never-ending buffet then it never gets hungry enough to eat everything on its plate so to speak and get into the habit of eating things it finds less desirable. My cockatiel (similar size) ate 3-4 teaspoons a day total. My TAG eats about 4-5 tablespoons.

To put this in human terms--- lets say that on your plate is a portion of food much larger than what you need---some of it comprised of food you like, some of it food you do not. You would entirely pick around your less liked food because there was so much of your favourites. In contrast if the entire portion was sized just right for one meal---you'd be much more likely to eat the non-favoured food because you couldn't fill up on your favourites.
HOWEVER, that would NOT happen of course if you'd be snacking all day (so not too hungry at mealtime) and you knew that snacks would be available shortly after dinner---because you'd probably choose to go a bit hungry, only eat what you like and then fill up with the next snack time.

3: TOPS as an only food--thinking that veggies and other foods are extra
-TOPS is NOT a complete diet and should not be thought of as the 'good stuff'---they are only a component to a good diet. Veggies are not treats. They are both crucial to the health of your bird and you should NOT deprive the bird of one to force him to eat the others.


To solve the picky eating:

1: Find out how much food your bird is ACTUALLY eating in a day between all the food you're offering
2: Stop free-feeding all day---take your bird's daily food amount and split it into two meals. Waking up hungry/looking forward to dinner is a great motivator to a healthy non-picky appetite.
3: Offer the least-liked foods first thing in the morning--for me my TAG isn't crazy about the birdie bread so she gets that first.
4: Listen to what the bird is telling you---TOPS in its pellet dry form is very powdery and dry. Consider making a more moist birdie bread instead of offering dry, dusty pellets.

[Scotty]

marie83 & Grey_Moon thanks for the input...

So for weight in pellets how many grams a day do we want to see gone when weighing if 2-3 isn't enough, maybe 3-5 grams a day should be eaten?

To be honest in the beginning BeBe was going nutts eating TOPS so I figured I could load on other foods to help with the diet.

I'm also not piling on extra foods as treats and snacks, sorry for any miscommunication, I was talking about feeding the bird food besides the pellets, of course through out the day I would add in a treat... So no I don't give veggies as treats...

To be honest I don't have time to make and bake and cook for the bird, but when my wife does cook healthy things which is want I want all the time, hehe, then I give that to BeBe too, like mung beans and different beans...

What is a good bird bread? I guess I'll have the mrs start making it for BeBe.

OK WIFE TIME TO COOK FOR BeBe!

I might get stink eye look from the mrs for telling her that, LOL...

I was hoping a good pellet diet would be the stable of the diet and then I'd add in some extras like grains, seeds, vegatbles and fruit and on occassion organic eggs and whatver good healthy things I find at the healthfood store...

What has made this difficult about how much to feed BeBe is because with the Harrisions, BeBe would sit and eat it through out the entire day, I mean this bird really seems to have a HUGE appetite!

I just thought since it's a baby growing it wants to eat, so let it eat as much as it wants. Plus BeBe seems to be the runt of the flock so I figured since she was really eating a lot it migth be best to help her with being a runt to grow up bigger and stronger...

This looks interesting Goldn’obles I;
http://www.goldenfeastfoods.com/feature ... dnobles-i/


THANKS

[marie83]

Its hard to say how much in weight a bird should be eating, it varies from species to species and bird to bird.It also depends alot on the foods being fed, the season, how active the bird is etc.

Harlie is a 6 yo (ish) female cockatiel. She is pretty lazy in that she doesn't fly unless scared and isn't particuarly playful. Her usual intake is around 7-8g of pellets but sometimes as much as 10-12g if she has been more active than normal. I don't weigh Harlie at the moment as we are still working on taming so I find it hard to get the right balance for her, I'm definitely guilty of overfeeding her though because she is normally quite round looking lol. 2-3g intake in a 24 hour period is a huge drop for her and it is showing, definitely nowhere near enough food for her.

Ollie is a 2 1/2 year old green cheek, he eats around 6-9g of pellets, he is a smaller but but much much more active. I weigh him though so I have learned how to manage his food through that.

All the weights I have given here are variable because I will reduce or increase how many pellets are given in accordence with what other foods they get on that particular day. I only tend to reduce the pellets if they are getting seed or other high calorie foods for taming/training or a treat, I don't tend to bother with the fruit and veg as the ones I feed are low calorie anyway (except banana).

I'm honestly not as fussy as it sounds and it sounds like harder work than it is, I just let the birds weight or appearence guide me, the pellets are the base diet and as long as the rest is varied and healthy then I'm happy.

[Scotty]

Well TOPS doesn't seem to be working good for BeBe and I'd like to think there could be a good pellet diet that could be the base/stable...

I also found this Momma's Bird Bread which seems to be mainly organic;

http://www.mommabird.com/categories/Birdie-Bread/

I'm into organic all the way...

I also found this Dr. Harvey's, there's mention of organic, not sure everything is 100% organic;

http://www.drharveys.com/products/show/45-what-s-cookin

Found this site, looks all organic; (This looks like some good stuff)

http://www.avianorganics.com/

By the way is there a really good food list here of the forum? If not I'll start one in the diet/food section, I'd really like to see a nice list going to help people, besides myself.


THANKS

[Grey_Moon]

She was chowing down on the Harrisons because its full of sunflower seeds n peanuts---it tastes good! So they'll eat (and overeat) it.

TOPS can be a tricky food because it isn't fatty---but it gets eaten pretty readily in a birdie bread (I've got a recipe for it in the Health & Nutrition section).

It honestly doesn't take as much time in the kitchen as you think---for me to make 2 months worth of birdie bread and 3 months worth of veggie mash it takes 6 hours in the kitchen total, ONCE A MONTH.
Every first weekend I pick a day n spend it making bird food, personally I think the health benefits are worth disturbing my lazy butt.