How do you tell if your bird is eating pellets?

[Frumpydumple]

We are converting our African Grey onto Harrisons High Potency Coarse pellets and he is FINALLY trying them, but I'm not sure if he is just crunching them up for fun, or actually eating them. My Green Cheek Conure is on Harrisons High Potency Fine and when she eats them there is only fine powder left over, but when our African Grey "eats" them there is still chunks of the pellets left over.

 

[KimKim]

Oh wow, I was going to say count them, but that's out of the question. I'm sure he is getting a little with all that grinding. Mine still make a bit of a mess on the bottom of his cage when eating pellets. Good luck

 

[MikeyTN]

What other food are you feeding? When changing food you need to be as observant as possible to see if he's really eating it or not. My large parrots are wasteful when it comes to pellets as they take a nip and waste the rest.

 

[Frumpydumple]

Fruit and vegetables in the afternoon and seed everyday in the evening. He has pellets in the cage all day apart from evening. I know that you should check the droppings in the cage, the droppings are normally quite green, so I don't really think he is eating them. He seems to want to starve other than eat them.

 

[RavensGryf]

Everyone here eats the 'fine' sized. I even had larger birds eating the fine. It doesn't go to waste that way. Maybe try and see if he will eat the fine?

 

[Featheredsamurai]

Kenji often waste a lot of his Harrison's when he's eating, occasionally he'll eat it slowly and barely waste it while other times he only eats a tiny bit and crushes the rest happily.

I'd say just observe him very carefully