Leave feed in cage overnight? Yes or No?

So, who leaves food of some sort in the cage all the time?

I recently heard an opinion from a vet & a couple parrot trainers that you don't leave food in the cage overnight - you get up pre-dawn, do a little training with a food reward when the bird is the most hungry . . . then feed.

After a couple hours, you remove the food. Then they don't have food through the middle of the day, but you feed/train again at dusk . . .

Does anyone here do that? And if so, do you change things up & leave food in the cage when you are out of town . . . in case the petsitter isn't as interested in pre-dawn feedings as you are?

I'm thinking of making a change in how I feed.

On the one hand, I live in fear they will go hungry because I over sleep or something happens - accident, horse colics, etc. - and I miss the morning feeding (or get into bad traffic on my way home from somewhere & miss the evening one).

On the other hand, I strongly suspect my parrot food bill would be lower if they ate more & wasted less of what I feed them, which might happen if they don't have food in front of them all the time.

I had originally been thinking of putting primarily pellets in their night cage at dusk & leaving it there for the dawn feeding, then supplementing with the veggies & greens & fruits during the day.

But now I'm not sure WHAT I am thinking . . .

What does anyone else do?

Same here. My boys always have pellets and seed in the cage. I take the fresh foods out after a couple of hours and replace it. At night only seeds and pellets though.

Some people use hunger as a motivation and it def. works. If you withhold my breakfast until I do some tricks, well, I'm hungry and will do them lol. I personally leave her pellets in a ll day and people without picky parrots (lol) give them fresh food in the day, but remove it at night and leave them with just pellets or the mix. I just find an absolute favourite treat for training and they only get it for training- they dont have it mixed in their food or anything.

Yes i agree with finding a treat that they love and only get during training as opposed to their regular food.

Yep yep! The withholding foods usually works, but it also can create a mad and hungry bird lol I kinda see it as starving, but I love animals and hold them high up, so I overreact and jump to defend them lol

What do others think of withholding the food, if you don't mind me asking?

I had read that you should not leave food in the cage all the time. The reason was that birds in the wild have to find, forage etc. for their food and that it is unnatural to have it available at all times. I also read that you should not leave it in the cage over night, this way when you give them their first meal it should be their fresh vegetables etc. They will be hungrier and more apt. to eat this. Now all this said I have waffled with what I should do. I have actually started to leave pellets in over night, however I will say that it is more difficult to get my birds to eat their vegetables in the morning. I still am not sure of what exactly to do. I do however believe it is important to make the birds work a little for some of the foods, more like their experience in the wild. I have decided that any seed I give (which is the smallest part of their diet) they will have to forage for. The pellets are available and many times I will mix in freeze dried vegetables. I am going to continue reading this thread as I am sure trying to figure out what is the best way to feed. I still think that pulling the pellets at night does make for a bird more apt to eat their vegetables in the morning which I feel is the hardest thing to get my birds to eat.

I never thought of it that way. My grandmothers parrots have food at night and in the morning we cook breakfast (eggs, eggshells, veggies, and fruits) and they eat that on their playstand rather hungrily. They look forward to the home cooked meals more than the seed mix. They also get fed another home cooked meal towards the early evening

brianlinkles said:

I had read that you should not leave food in the cage all the time. The reason was that birds in the wild have to find, forage etc. for their food and that it is unnatural to have it available at all times. I also read that you should not leave it in the cage over night, this way when you give them their first meal it should be their fresh vegetables etc. They will be hungrier and more apt. to eat this. Now all this said I have waffled with what I should do. I have actually started to leave pellets in over night, however I will say that it is more difficult to get my birds to eat their vegetables in the morning. I still am not sure of what exactly to do. I do however believe it is important to make the birds work a little for some of the foods, more like their experience in the wild. I have decided that any seed I give (which is the smallest part of their diet) they will have to forage for. The pellets are available and many times I will mix in freeze dried vegetables. I am going to continue reading this thread as I am sure trying to figure out what is the best way to feed. I still think that pulling the pellets at night does make for a bird more apt to eat their vegetables in the morning which I feel is the hardest thing to get my birds to eat.

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This is also my experience & the reason I started this thread.

I am not at all sure that a clean bowl overnight equates to a negative training method, i.e., a hungry bird will do whatever for food. But I'm also not completely sure it does not.

Hence, the original question . . .

MaraWentz, the question about "withholding food" is equally interesting - but to me, is different enough (intentionally withholding food to create a hungry/stressed bird to inspire training vs. not feeding overnight & taking advantage of a motivated bird before breakfast) that it deserves a thread of its own, because it is different (to me) from the original question I posed.

Hmm, interesting. For Pepper, who is just like "Bleah, whatever" about her pellets-I leave pellets in there all the time. Even when she gets up in the morning she will chirp at me until I give her a bowl of freshies-she knows everybody else is eating breakfast and she wants that. She doesn't even care that the pellets are in there. She occasionally will wander over and grab one or three during the day-but she just doesn't love them enough to eat them as her main food when there's another option. So I keep pellets in there all the time but she still will work hard for training purposes and will eat her freshies with great gusto.

Pookamama said:

Hmm, interesting. For Pepper, who is just like "Bleah, whatever" about her pellets-I leave pellets in there all the time. Even when she gets up in the morning she will chirp at me until I give her a bowl of freshies-she knows everybody else is eating breakfast and she wants that. She doesn't even care that the pellets are in there. She occasionally will wander over and grab one or three during the day-but she just doesn't love them enough to eat them as her main food when there's another option. So I keep pellets in there all the time but she still will work hard for training purposes and will eat her freshies with great gusto.

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I wish that Dorothy loved her freshies like that! She will go and eat some but doesn't seem to eat for very long. Like she tries everything and then just sort of says Eh, enough of that! I think that she looks thin to me, the breeder says she's fine however I am a worrier and I am constantly trying to find her "thing" when it comes to food. So far pistachios are her fav. treat, she has learned many tricks just to get one! She will eat her pellets, she seems to like them, loves seed but I try and limit the amount she gets of seed. I would love to hear what others say they do about withholding the pellets at night. My amazon, on the other hand is chubby and I like to remove her food at night and then give everything back to her in the morning.

brianlinkles said:

I had read that you should not leave food in the cage all the time. The reason was that birds in the wild have to find, forage etc. for their food and that it is unnatural to have it available at all times. I also read that you should not leave it in the cage over night, this way when you give them their first meal it should be their fresh vegetables etc. They will be hungrier and more apt. to eat this. Now all this said I have waffled with what I should do. I have actually started to leave pellets in over night, however I will say that it is more difficult to get my birds to eat their vegetables in the morning. I still am not sure of what exactly to do. I do however believe it is important to make the birds work a little for some of the foods, more like their experience in the wild. I have decided that any seed I give (which is the smallest part of their diet) they will have to forage for. The pellets are available and many times I will mix in freeze dried vegetables. I am going to continue reading this thread as I am sure trying to figure out what is the best way to feed. I still think that pulling the pellets at night does make for a bird more apt to eat their vegetables in the morning which I feel is the hardest thing to get my birds to eat.

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I think there are many variables to this. First if training is your goal then pulling food and no free feeding is the way to go. However most of us are interested in the health of our pet ,non-trick, birds. if pulling pellets at night so your bird will eat fresh foods in the AM , then by all means that's the thing to do. With my zons this is not the case, they'd rather have fresh fruit/veggies than pellets. ( i only feed pellets so they get all of the nutrients they need) I'm not so sure that my limited supply of fruit/veggies supplies everything they need and use pellets to "fill the gaps". I have also discovered that with the zons if i feed a limited amount of pellets they will eat all i supply instead of however much they really need. I other words they'll eat it all if they know no more is coming. They won't leave 5 pellets in the dish. They might quit if there's 20 pellets left but they'll eat the last few even if not really hungry. These are my observations with my birds in my situation. Do what ever it takes for your fid to be in the best health possible.

I leave only pellets in Sassy and Amigo's cage at night, not that they eat them but it makes me feel better knowing they aren't going to starve! In the morning I make a fresh bowl of oatmeal mixed with ground up pellets, which they love, so I know they are getting their pellets that way. They also have fresh fruit and veggies available all day long. Lately, the ants have been horrible around Amigo's outside cage and will get in his food if I leave it in there too long, so, whenever he flies in looking to eat, I'll put it in till he's filled up. Then pull it back out.

I leave pellets in the cage 24/7. My pattern of sleep changes daily so I feel the bird is better off having food in his dish in the morning when he is ready to eat.

Thanks, all - great food for thought . . .

I think there are three separable topics here: free-feeding, food management for training purposes and foraging.

I do leave pellets or pellet/seed mix in the cages all the time and just change it out for a fresh batch in the morning. I simulate the AM/PM feeding routine by offering fresh food in the morning and sprouts in the evening. They are pretty interested in those when I bring them, but if they weren't I might consider removing the food some of the time.

I think foraging is a great thing and I try to offer some foraging for everybody, although I'm not as diligent as I probably should be. Especially when they are "stuck" in their cages, I think it definitely helps keep them busy and mentally active. For the 'tiel it's been mostly moving his pellet dish around, but I have some different styles of forage feeders for the other two.

Food management is something I might try if I had a serious behavioral issue that wasn't responding to normal behavior modification methods. Food management is the practice of withholding food so the bird is hungry for training sessions and therefore highly motivated. I don't think it's actually cruel, as some people suggest, but I suspect it leads to the bird doing things because it has to rather than because it is fun, and that's not what my goal is with my pet birds.