Conure won't eat pellets...help

Hi all,

New Conure owner here. We just got him a few days ago. I gave him some Zupreen Pasta blend and zupreem sensible seeds as a mixture, and he just throws the pasta blend out and digs for most of the sensible seeds. I also gave him some grapes, cucumber, bell pepper, lettuce blueberries, caorrots and he won't touch them. He'll eat his Millet Spray and the sensible seeds but thats it. I'm afraid he's not getting the correct diet this way.

Any pointers on maybe another pellet? Or method to feeding him the pellets and the veggies?

Thanks for any help here. Little worried.

Greetings, welcome,

Re: 31 year old Umbrella

When I acquired Meisha at 8 months her accustomed staple combination was monkey biscuits and sunflower seeds. Both were eliminated.

Pellets have been recommended by my Veterinarian repeatedly, who also advised when Meisha was 2-years of age, not to let the bird go hungry. Various types and brands were tried without success. It is common practice and recommendation to avoid soft foods. However I have not been able to abandon them.

What Works for Me

Morning Meal:

1. Granola with almonds plus three squares of Life original or cinnamon cereal, dry.
2. I remove the remaining after two hours and store in a sealed container for use the next day.

Evening Meal:
Meisha is picky about her food. To get around it I provide her small variations. When all of the variations are included together in a bowl, she will do what any child would do and eat what she prefers most, first. Partially satisfied, she stalls on the less desirable. My workaround is to provide her least desirable first.

1. She starts with a fruit, small amount of peach, pear or grapes.
2. Followed with, a small amount of chicken, tuna or turkey.
3. Next up is precooked frozen shrimp. Use to serve is thawed, however well over a decade ago, Meisha pursued convincingly to try shrimp frozen. It is clearly her preference.
4. The Bill of fare, next in line is corn. She also prefers this one frozen. It seems similar to a seed in the hardened state. She opens the kernel for the meat of the seed and discards the casing.
5. Then if I have it, a chicken bone. I debone roasted chickens, saving practical bones for her. I lower a container into the cage and let her pick. On occasions, she puts back the first choice and grabs a larger bone, cracking them open for the marrow.
6. For the the grand finale, oatmeal. I've tried various brands and versions. Her solid preference is Quaker Oats and Walnuts.

Meisha still occasionally stalls, wanting to holdout for the oatmeal. I have pulled the food bowl out and placed a seal container of oatmeal next to it using the top of the cage to work off of. With success I've told her she cannot have any oatmeal without finishing her pear, what ever it is she is stalled on. After a stare, she wraps it up.

Recommend excluding all dairy, pork, chocolate and candies from the diet. Seed in moderation.

I use safflower seeds in training. Safflower has less fat and less sodium. Recently Meisha opened a sunflower seeds and let them drop, consuming none of it.

Welcome to you and your conure! Parrots will typically graze the "buffet line" and eat what they wish, discard the rest. Essentially, dessert first, everything nutritious, last!

Should be helpful to isolate the three components and serve separately, try not to mix in one serving. A huge caveat to the remainder of my advice: Never starve a bird into submission. However, they can go several hours without a favored food.

The hierarchy of nutrition is generally accepted as: (some will disagree)
1- Fresh veggies and fruits
2- A quality pellet
3- Seeds, such as safflower, sunflower, whole wheat, pumpkin, assorted fillers.

Try serving a variety of fresh veggies and fruits aka "chop" for a few hours. Temperature will be your guide for longevity. Nothing else! Next, introduce a quality pellet for a few hours, nothing else! Finally, the seed mix as stand-alone offering.

An excellent protocol for introducing pellets from the Harrison's site: https://www.harrisonsbirdfoods.com/using-our-foods/large-bird-conversion/ I used this method to switch my entire flock to Harrisons, however I posted the link solely because the method should work for any pellet brand.

Additional advice on changing to a healthier diet: http://www.parrotforums.com/parrot-...7-converting-parrots-healthier-diet-tips.html

Good luck let us know how things are going!!

Welcome! Congratulations on your new friend!
I’d give him a little time to settle, like a week or two. I’d still offer whatever crap he was fed before. In other dishes I would offer the better new food. I would still offer veggies every day, and in lots of different ways, cooked, nit cooked, shredded or chopped, or chunks and whole. Also you can share parrot safe meals with him , like some pasta with veggies, or purée some veggies and add to a couple of pieces of pasta fir him. Eat stuff in front of him and gen offer to him.

Parrots love veggies, and they can become great st trying new foods and enjoy it! But at first yiu have to convince them it’s food, because their parents, breeder, pet store , flock didn’t get t chance to reach them this. They learn best from the flock ( you) . Once you get them trying stuff the better they get st trying new things, if that makes sense.

I’ve gotten 3 Quaker’s and 1 GCC , and 2 budgie eating everything that is safe .

One thing that helps with getting to eat veggies, offer in a very wide shallow dish , like a casserole dish. So they can see stuff and pick at stuff . It also seems to help to offer this outside of the cage, kinds of like they did overs it and not like it intruded into their cage... I’m nit sure the parrots view point in this , I just know it works! Just like if you put a new toy in the cage they freak, but outside if the cage they come across something new ( like the remote control) they destroy it with glee....

The other thing that helps, us to st first offer them stuff that has an easy appeal, like I said once they start trying new foods the quicker and better they will get at trying new foods.

I do this by hand, and by offering in the big dish. So first I will offer a seed that they like and say yum yum . ( yiu can say whatever you want but useing a phrase helps make the connection) I will do this a few times, then offer s tinny little cube or sliver of apple. They all seem to like apple. Then I put a slice in their dish. Next I might offer a few fresh off the corn cob pieces of corn, then put a chunk of corn in their dish.. and hot chili peppers seed and all those foods are well liked right out for most birds.. then I offer popcorn, a little scrambled eggs, oatmeal and peas are well liked . I offer anything by hand that I’m having or cooking with that is parrot safe. I try and offer three different veggies at each serving, I do first thing in the morning ( they are hungry ) , then late after ( just what works for me) Even if it seems they don’t like it try stuff, keep offering, sometimes it takes several offeres before they eat it, veggies go in and out if favor around here.

Keep up the habit of offering new foods by hand, they learn that this is food, and to st least check it out, I keep offering high value ( to them) foods here and there to.

Even my budgie will eat with gusto almost everything on the parrot safe bird lists.

Great advice above. Here is my story with Syd. He was on just seeds and the odd slice of apple when I got him at 16 weeks. Everything I offered outside of this was thrown out I swear, with every intention of hitting me with it.I tred everything. I ate the same ooohing and ahhhing with 'delight'. I removed seeds altogether for part of each day. Nothing, just the evil eye.

Then one day instead of watching to see if he ate I walked off and hid. He waited, made sure I was gone and the little so and so tucked in to the veggies and pellets with joyous abandon. From then on I left him to it, and gradually he got that he would try anything. LOL

You can also try crushing up the pellets to a powder in a mortar and pestle, then sprinkling it over his food. I once had a VERY stubborn cockatiel who would almost have preferred to starve to death rather than convert to pellets. I tried every suggestion from my vet, from the interweb and from the pellet manufacturers and she point blank refused to even recognise them as food. After an eight week battle of wills I thought to grind them to a powder and incorporate them into her food just to get her accustomed to the taste and voila! Within days she was eating them like she’d done so all her life! Even if it doesn’t quite work your birdie may inadvertently get some of that better nutrition into him without even realising it

Good luck!

Thank you all for the replies and all the information. I'm going to go through it all and probably reply individually. But I think I'll start trying to feed him outside the cage in the morning. Baby steps.

thanks