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Does any of you guys have any parrots? We have 2 white bellied Caiques, the ones with orange heads instead of black. They are small parrots. They are known as the "clowns" in the parrot world.
What's the best pellet food that your parrots will eat? I'm trying to switch my birds off seeds to pellets. They eat fresh fruit and veggies everyday too. But they refuse to eat any pellets I buy.
While I dont have any birds right now, I do work at a pet store, and I do have a lot of experance with finchs, keets, teils, conure, and macaws. Best thing to do is stop feeding them so much fruit and lettuce, for one becuse it isnt all that good for them to have to much. I would recommend either a small parrot/conure pellet, or a nutra tiel food, or mix the two. If they still dont want to eat that then cut the fruit and veggies all together until they start eating the seed/pellets. Once they do, you can reward them with fruits. It might seem a bit crewl but it will be a lot better for them. Hope this helps.
We raised African Grey parrots for 20+ years. We used Zeiglers mostly. Roudybush is good and now Zupreem has a pelleted diet that we give our last old girl. Zeiglers was my favorite and we just can't find it here. They provide zoo's with their food from hippos to turtles. Good luck
Just keep trying the pellets but make sure that you have their regular food available too. It took my one cockatiel 13 years to eat pellets. His companion ate them right away. It took him 13 years to catch on.
This little Yellow Sided Green Cheek Conure gets a mix of pellets and Zoopreem BB sized pellets for conures and cockatoos mixed 50/50 with Bonanza seed mix for smaller parrots. She likes raisins, grapes, cooked chicken, peas and other safe people food in small amounts. She is funny as she likes her food Au jus so we have to change her water 6 to 8 times a day or it gets funky. I also have her potty trained so when she wants to be on my shoulder I tell her to "make your poo poo" and she does her business or if she doesn't have to go she fakes it.
She also rides cheek to cheek in our rig when traveling and can be left alone with our dog for periods of time (if the temp in the rig is not to cold or hot of coarse) and they just sit there side by side waiting for us. If we are in a restaurant we try to get by a window so we can keep an eye on them. I have had a parrot stolen out of my car once. My car was locked and I only left the bird for about two minutes. I was devastated.
Mine goes bike riding and kayaking with me and she is the best talking conure I've ever seen, she says about 6 or 7 words in various little simple understandable sentences in up to seven or eight syllables. One example is her very frequent little quip " Peekaboo baby, I love you"
Feeding any parrot just seeds or just pellets exclusively will not be good for the bird and every type of either true parrots or parrot like birds (like all animals) each have specific dietary requirements.
Any one who loves their bird should keep a list of known foods and wood (for chewing or sitting on) that are toxic to your bird.
One tip for folks thinking about buying a parrot, it takes a lot of money, work, and time to end up with a nice taking and easily handled pet. Don't just go pick out a pretty parrot in a pet shop, decide what type of parrot you want (do some homework, some do not make good pets) and when shopping, don't you choose the bird, let the bird choose you. It's like picking a husband or a wife, it not wise to buy sight unseen as in a mail order bride. It's best to try to get a young one that seems willing to come to you willingly rather than run to the back of the cage.
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