I think I found the trick to Lily eating pellets...

AkridChaos

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Aug 31, 2017
129
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USA
Parrots
Rescue Budgie: Snowball (blue/grey)
Normal Budgie: Oliver (yellow/green)
Black Capped Conure: Warbeak
Parrotlet: Lily, Rest In Peace
Canary-Winged Parakeet: Stryker
Ok those who know me from the conure forum, you know my aggravation at how hard I’ve been trying to get Lily and Snowball onto pellets. I always knew the trick to getting Snowball eating his pellets would be getting Lily onto pellets first. Anything she eats, Snowball has to go to that same food dish to eat. The real trick was trying to find a way for Lily to eat pellets...

I’ve been trying for months with no success. Different brands, different flavors, mixing it with treats, mashing it into food, having it in the cage for the morning food devour wake up....no success. They would literally choose starvation over eat any pellets and of course I can only wait them out so long before I know I have to give in and give them their “real” food, being the seeds I’m trying to break them off of. Months. I’ve been at this for MONTHS. Working my butt off doing crazy tricks to get them to eat it. And I discovered today through much internal screaming that the answer was something so simple for Lily...

Warbeak was upstairs with me in the bird room, testing out Lily/Snowball’s new play stand for good measure. I had only his conure sized pellets upstairs for him to nom on, and Lily/Snowball’s food is always in their cage. Well lo and behold, Lily was too lazy to go into her cage for food, so she goes to steal Warbeak’s pellets. Hey this looks tasty, nom. Nom nom HEY SNOWBALL GET OVER HERE AND TRY THIS WITH ME. K. Nomnomnom. You have GOT to be kidding me. Months. For something as simple as “change from parakeet pellets to conure pellets”. -_- it’s so stupid, because any of their actual foods like fruits and veggies, if it’s not small enough for them, they ignore it. They HATE big food, so I assumed the same logic applies with pellets. Nope wrong, nom. I mean I’m not mad that they’re eating pellets. But come on I spent MONTHS working on this, for the answer to be something so dumb. Shake. My. Head. Of course no doubt the pellets taste absolutely the same regardless of size, too. Whatever... at least I finally made headway.
 
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AkridChaos

New member
Aug 31, 2017
129
5
USA
Parrots
Rescue Budgie: Snowball (blue/grey)
Normal Budgie: Oliver (yellow/green)
Black Capped Conure: Warbeak
Parrotlet: Lily, Rest In Peace
Canary-Winged Parakeet: Stryker
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YEP! That’s exactly all it took. This morning I filled a dish with conure sized pellets and had no other food in the cage. Normally they ignore the parakeet sized pellets. Hah, they went and devoured it all. They actually got into a mini fight over who gets to eat it. What a strange sight to see. Well, I guess from here on out, it’s a healthier food diet finally.
 

Terry57

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That's awesome! I realized the same thing but in reverse...I ran out of the larger pellets so used smaller ones, and a few of my bigger birds went crazy for those.
 

Jen5200

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Mar 27, 2017
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I totally feel your pain, mine hated the conure size in every brand - accidentally bought parakeet sized pellets one time and everyone’s a fan. I took all the “big” pellets to the rescue that I volunteer at so that they wouldn’t go to waste lol. It’s amazing what weird ideas get into their little heads :)
 

Sunnyclover

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Jan 11, 2017
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My 2 Conures love the cockatiel size pellets! I use a mix of Harrison's (fine), Zupreem fruit blend and Tropican. I get the small size and also mix in some of the Harrison's bigger ones for fun!
 

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