Help! My 2 Year old Parrotlet won't eat anything but seeds!

[Jenabee]

Marvin came to us at one year old. When I got him, I was excited to make him sweet potato mash and feed him berries, fruits and veggies. But Marvin hates EVERYTHING, except for his seeds. I've tried pellets mixed in, but he picks them out. We've tried clipping things to the side of his cage so he can play with/destroy/ hopefully eat them, and hand feeding doesn't work. He just turns his beak away and gets mad.
On the very rare occasion, we will destroy broccolini or broccoli, but I'm not sure if he's eating it or just shredding it.
I don't think that he was given a lot of fresh veggies early on in his life and perhaps weaned too quickly on to seeds without a balance of greens. Is there ANY way that we can get him to eat his veggies, fruit or anything other than seeds? He's now almost 2.

Thanks

[Pricey_boy]

when you give him seeds pick out all the sunflower seeds.when you offer fruits and veggies ones with juice mainly corn rough up the edges so they can get a good taste, you can put veggies in there every day it takes a while before they start eating them

[friend2parrots]

hi there!

for a conversion to pellets, the following worked for my budgies that I had some years past - theyre both deceased now. and boy, were they stubborn little things! they also had been raised on nothing but seeds, and refused other foods.

my vet recommended this - get a very shallow dish with a little bit of a lip on the edge. observe how much seed your parrotlet consumes in one day, and place that amount into the dish in the morning. check the dish in the eve. if there are any seeds left over, then youve fed too much. reduce it so its just right.

when youve got this down, then youre ready for the next step. one morning, remove about a quarter of the amount of the seed youve been offering. replace that with pellets. offer this for about 2 weeks. if you see pellet crumbles anywhere in the dish or in the cage, then you are making progress.

in 2 weeks time, adjust the mixture to two thirds seed and one third pellets. see how that works out.

after about another 2 weeks, adjust the mixture to one half seed to one half pellets.
about two weeks after that, offer one third seed and two third pellets
about two weeks after that, quarter seed, three quarters pellets.

by this time, you should defintely see pellet crumbles. make sure youre using the right size for your bird. procure a weight scale and weigh him regularly to check he is not losing too much weight.

keep adjusting the pellet amount gradually to be the only thing you offer, working at the really slow pace demonstrated above. it takes a LONG time for the little guys to change their mindsets sometimes.

it wook a total of three months for the full conversion. it has to be gradual because you dont want such a small bird to go into a low blood sugar situation.

also, my vet told me to place fresh white paper towels on the bottom of the cage, OVER the grate, so you can examine the poop throughout the day. you will see it start to change in appearance as the peellets are being consumed. also, you should make sure that a good number of poops are taking place, in proportion to the amount of time the bird is in the cage. too few poops throughout the day means hes not eating enough, and that you need to slow down a little bit.

when i did the seed to pellet conversion, i just didnt offer any veggies at all until i reached the 100% pellet mark. once that mark is reached, and the pellets are all that the bird gets to eat, the fruits and other juicy things become irresistible to them, believe me! so work on the pellet conversion first, then move on to other dietary items.


hope this helps, good luck!

[friend2parrots]

hi - just wanted to note that I edited my post above to include something i'd forgotten.

[marie83]

It is never too late to get a bird eating other stuff but it can take alot of time and perserverance.

My cockatiel Harlie has only just started eating fresh after trying to tempt her for over 5 years, she would literally sooner starve herself than touch anything fresh or even damp and I can say we tried everything. We rationed her main diet, left her increasing lengths of time with only fruit and veg in her cage, ate in front of her, got our other birds to eat in front of her, left it whole, chopped it smaller, chopped it into minute pieces, offered it raw, offered it steamed, boiled, mashed, turned it into toys, mixed it in with things etc.

The first thing I would suggest is that if your freefeeding unlimited amounts then stop and offer meals instead. start by weighing your parrotlet each morning and feeding what you would normally feed. When you get a jist of how much he normally weighs then you can start cutting his food back every few days (weigh the food too) whilst monitoring him for weight loss. When he starts losing weight from doing this then put the amount of food he gets back up to the last amount of food he got that kept his weight stable.

Once you are it this point you can then start playing with his portions, the aim is to make him a bit hungry so he is tempted to try the new foods. With Harlie, I had kind of given up hope of her ever eating fresh after 5 years of trying but I kind of fell into a 3 day cycle with her. I weighed her pellets whilst chopping her fruit and veg up into pellet sized pieces and mixing it in the same dish, it took ages but then one day i went to get the bowl and the fruit and veg was gone too. She still wont eat everything but she will have apple, kale, cauliflower, broccoli and couple of other things in small amounts.

I would start off by sprouting some of his seeds (aim for 1-2 days growth), this is generally the easiest thing to convince them to eat as its so similar to dry seeds- harlie didnt fall for it but shes the most fussy bird ive ever met lol. Once hes started eating them you might be able to sneak over stuff chopped up finely in.