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How do you give a variety diet to a picky cockatiel?
My cockatiel Misty is the pickiest eater ever. She will pick through her seeds for the ones she likes and then dance around the bottom of her cage and/or throw the unwanted seeds at me until I pour them out and refill her dish.
Any tips on how to get her to eat other foods? I've tried the 'leave it and they'll eat it once hungry enough' and that method doesn't work. She only likes those few seeds in her dish which thankfully make up a majority of the cheapest cockatiel bulk food so not too much is wasted.
2 Answers
- Glen CocoLv 61 decade agoFavorite Answer
There are other methods besides leaving it and they eat it when they get hungry enough. To get my cockatiels to switch to pellets I would take all their food out at night, and give them pellets in the morning when they were hungriest. Since it would be in their normal food bowl, they got the hint that they were supposed to eat it. But it didn't always work. So what's supposed to be done is leave it in the cage for a few hours, and if they don't eat any, take out that food and then give them their normal food for like 20 minutes, then put the new food back. Then repeat the same process about 3 times a day. This process got one of my cockatiels to eat pellets after like 2 days. The other one though had a hard time converting. But since he saw the other one eating, he started eating them after about a week.
I know everyone's against methods like that. Everyone always says mix half the old food and half the new food and then generally move it to like 3 quarters new food and 1 quarter old food. But the reality of it is, REAL picky eaters don't do that. They will sit there and pick out the food they like until there is no more left, and then sit there for hours trying to find one more bite left instead of just trying the new food. It doesn't work. I tried it.
Even if you're not trying to get your bird to convert to pellets I still suggest my method. It should work for all types of food.
- RowanSilverSkyeLv 41 decade ago
How long are you leaving the fresh foods without seeds in the cage for?Birds become malnutritioned with seed only diets and dont get any vitamins.Have you tried sitting with her and pretending to eat the food you are trying to get her to eat??How long have you been trying to get her to eat the fresh foods total?one week?one month??keep at it,three to four hours in the am and three in the pm,without a seed choice.If you give in,shes won--but also lost--her potential good health,and years off of her life.Try a cooked sweet potato with seed mixed into it,pumpkin,carrots,green beans,fennel stalks(anise)dark leafy lettuces chopped up,whole wheat pasta,soaked overnight and cooked quinoa,wheat berries,rye,amaranth,whole oats..the possiblities are endless:")
Dont feed Pellets to Cockatiels or smaller birds--I have seen too many cases of Vitamin Toxicity--too much Vitamin causes poisoning.
Source(s): I have eight Cockatiels who were taught to eat everything--some were seed junkies that I stuck with getting them to eat what I wanted them to eat,not what they wanted:")
