What treat to use?

Hey! After months I’m back!!!!

Well so I have a problem with Mambo, I have the feeling that he only likes sunflower seeds. I mean that it’s the only thing he loves enough for being able to train him.
Nutriberries he doesn’t really care and it takes to long for him to eat them.
Cedar nuts/pine nuts, he can’t break them open -.-, and idk where to buy them without shell.
Pellets, he’s not interested...

So yeah what treat would you recommend me? Sunflower seeds is the only thing for what he will do whatever I ask him to do...


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Welcome back jousze and Mambo, we missed you!

I know zero about Amazons but my green cheeked conure used to do just about ANYTHING for a sultana or a cranberry - up to and including tolerating my husband who he did not like one bit. They’re full of sugar though so I’d only give him a half or a quarter at a time. Maybe you could give those a try?

LaManuka said:

Welcome back jousze and Mambo, we missed you!

I know zero about Amazons but my green cheeked conure used to do just about ANYTHING for a sultana or a cranberry - up to and including tolerating my husband who he did not like one bit. They’re full of sugar though so I’d only give him a half or a quarter at a time. Maybe you could give those a try?

Click to expand...

It’s an option! I’ll give it a try tomorrow or something and update you!


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Shelled pine nuts can be found inmost larger supermarkets. Salty would paint my house for a pine nut. Two coats !!

Our ekkie came to us on sunflower seeds for treats. We switched to sliced almonds - I completely got rid of the sunflower seeds, so it wasn't an option for him ever again.

We also tried walnuts, which he is ok with but not preferred. Pine nuts are too expensive where we are.

But definitely buy unshelled if you're using as training treats or else it's too much time between the trick and the treat and the next trick.

I use sunflower seeds. If I've got time, I cut them in half with a stanley knife. They're certainly not the best daily diet for a bird, but they're no worse for a treat than any of the nuts out there, which contain roughly the same amount of fat. Walnuts contain about twice as much fat as other nuts, so you'd want to use those fairly sparingly.

I've used sultanas, raisins, dried pawpaw and other fruits for treats, but they're full of sugar and take too long for the bird to eat them. By the time he's finished, he's forgotten why you rewarded him! LOL!

I look at it like giving sweets to a toddler. A few is fine, too much will lead to a sweet tooth and bad behaviour. So I only train for a few minutes at a time (it's enough anyway, as the bird loses concentration over five or ten minutes) and I give each bird less than a teaspoonful of sunflower seeds over the course of a day.

The danger of developing fatty liver and lipomas is real! I was led to believe that lipomas were harmless, but they're not! They can become malignant over time and that's how we lost our precious galah, Dominic. He died of testicular cancer which had spread from fatty tumours. The fatty tumours were the result of an entirely sunflower seed diet.

To be clear: there's a big difference between feeding *all* sunflower seed and using it as a training treat. But just be aware that fatty foods (including all the nuts) must be used with the greatest discretion. Like with people, y'know? A little bit is necessary, but too much can be disastrous.

Oh, one other alternative is millet spray. Some people break off tiny portions and give one as a reward, others just offer the spray to the bird and let him have a quick nibble of it. I've just done the exercise and worked out the fat content of millet: it's 0.5g of fat per teaspoon, which is better than most other options.

Just FYI, this is fat content in grams per gram of food:

Peanuts 0.5
Almonds 0.7
Walnuts 1.2
Pine Nuts 0.7
Sunflower seed 0.5
Millet 0.5g per tsp

I got this information from the Borushek online nutrition guide.

Personally I use the nibble off a spray of millet option, it's convenient, takes no real time, and the opportunity for a jackpot reward can be managed simply by permitting the bird to munch on the spray longer than normal.

I use bits of almond, walnut, freshly made warm oatmeal, bits of whole grain dark bread.

Caution about almonds; in some parts of the world deadly "bitter almonds" are available. I believe they contain sufficiently high concentrations of prussic acid aka cyanide and cause rapid death.

I created my bond with our Amazon using pecans and shelled peanuts, he goes nuts for a pecan doing what I call the "Happy boy dance" took him from hating all men, to accepting me as dad, he has even come to me on his own will without bribery.