She doesn't want to eat the new food :(

[Rrrma]

We started a new diet on saturday, cutting out the kaytee(and crap). And the first meal she was ALL over it. I've put together a mix of fresh and cooked fruits and veggies, beans, and rice. I've put a big of pellets in the dry cup and at the very bottom of the pellets I put a small scoop of kaytee so she can find it if she really needs to.

I've done the same with my other 2 parrots and they have taken wonderfully to the new diet, but she just seems mad at me. She is hungry, I just put a fresh millet spray in there and she attacked it like mad. She would even rather eat the pellets(which are bland/kibble tasting) than the fresh food.

I don't get it, why is she being so difficult?! It is very disheartening

I even tried sprinkling pepper(of different kinds during different meals) to see if it helped. She just seems mad that I changed things.

 

[pawsfoot]

I'm not going to be much help, but Ezzy would rather eat her pellet mixture than the fresh fruits and veggies too. I just keep trying different things to see what works.

 

[greycloud]

Instead of pepper, try sprinkling with cinnamon. She is not doing this to intentionally make you angry. It is always a trial when we change diets and try to find what they like. It is so important for your girl to get fruits and veggies. So trythe cinnamon, try serving warm, try serving cold. It is a guessing game.

 

[_Cass_]

Try out a bunch of different veggies and fruits.
Toulouse hates Peppers, Grapes, Carrots and Apples.
But LOVES Corn, Cherries, Peaches, Broccoli, Pasta, and Peas.
Try out different things and maybe cook them in different ways....?
Maybe she'll like them?
Have you tried birdie bread? Maybe you could make some with a bunch of veggies...
Sometimes i'll take a biggish piece of Broccoli and make little tiny holes, and hide the pellets deep in the broccoli.
She'll have to dig and eat through the broccoli to get to her beloved pellets. : )

 

[Rrrma]

Oh I'm not angry and I know she isn't doing it on purpose. I think SHE is mad at ME for changing things lol!

I'm offering her about 20 different ingredients all cooked different ways. Maybe warming them up with help. Some of the ingredients have cinnamon on them. But I have been serving it right out of the fridge, so maybe warming it would help.

 

[apatrimo94]

Who exactly are we talking about here? LOL

 

[Rrrma]

My eclectus! Rosie! lol!

(I had to go check and make sure I put it in the right species before I responded lol)

 

[apatrimo94]

Your eclectus won't eat her fruits and veggies? Now that's a problem. Eclectus have one of the most complicated diets compared to other parrots. They NEED a variety of fruits and veggies. What kind of pepper did you put on? Try crushed red pepper or jalapenos. Cinnamon works great too. If you haven't in a while, the best thing you can also do is get her a vet check-up to see how healthy she is? Because if she's gone this long without fruits or veggies, something might be wrong that you can't see. Good luck

 

[Rrrma]

She's been on a bagged seed diet most of her life, when I got her I added fresh foods to it, but kept her on the bagged mix that she liked.

I just recently tried pulling her completely off the mix and instead of upping her fresh food intake, it has stayed the same and she refuses to try the new things.

She is still eating, just not what she should be. She picks through it for the good pieces and eats a lot of millet and a few pellets. I'm making sure she is getting plenty of food, it just isn't all the right kind of foods she needs.

I wonder if rearranging her cage would help.

Or maybe I'm expecting her to eat more than she needs?

I'm looking in her bowl right now and it seems like she ate a chickpea, a bite of grape, half a broccoli head,and maybe a few bits of corn/peas.

I feed her the fresh food twice a day. Plus the pellets are in there 24h, and she has been having some of those. And the millet.

I'm just really worried I'm not doing this right. :/

*she just ate another chickpea while I typed. She is sitting on my arm with the bowl infront of it.
**make that another chickpea
***and some corn and the rest of the grape and now keeps digging for stuff... maybe I'm being paranoid?

 

[apatrimo94]

Ok, baby steps, that's good. Try this, before you go to bed, take all her food out. Then in the morning, when they're usually most hungry, put in only the fresh F&V. See how it works out.

 

[Rrrma]

Yeah, that probably would be better. She is more of a nightowl like me. She doesn't like having to get up in the morning and she probably eats more through the night.

 

[Mel]

I can really sympathise with you here. When I got Shadow home she wouldn't touch the fresh stuff either, I offered all the F & V the breeder said she liked, cut them and cooked them all different ways and nothing!!!!

I decided to try the sprouts which she went nuts over so was glad she was eating something. I searched threads on this forum and someone had suggested a skewer with F & V and greens intertwined and that seemed to work wonders. I also made birdie bread which she didn't enjoy as much at first but now she eats everything. I still have the skewer - passionfruits are a favourite and have a container with everything chopped smaller and mashed up. Just remember what she likes today may not be tomorrow so try to change whats on offer regularly.

Bread is easy. I usually put anything and everything she can eat including nuts, spices, oranges with the peel, whole eggs (shell incl) add some oats and organic wholemeal flour mush it all together and bake it until firm.

 

[Birdamor]

I takes a long time to fully convert a bird to a healthier diet. It has taken me up to four years to get one single bird to eat everything I offer so don't dispair, it's just a matter of time. I offer gloop which has several cooked veggies all chopped up in it but I only offer one single raw fruit, one single veggie and one single leafy green a day. I have found that, sometimes, it's better for them to concentrate on one single one than having an offering of a lot of different ones. And that is also the way they eat in the wild, they go to one tree and eat all the fruit in that tree, then the following day they eat something else and that's all they eat all day long. So, try that: one veggie, one fruit, one leafy green (they start by eating the stalks of the greens so offer the kind with crunchy stalks like romaine, Swiss chard, bok choy, etc)