New Alexandrine advice.

[Josh89]

Hi, My partner and i recently bought a 9 week old Alexandrine. We named her Ecko. We bought her from a breeder (she came with a dna cert.) and saw her parents who looked big and healthy. We handle her everyday and she is stepping up great and not biting at all. The problem im having is i cant get her to eat the Vetafarm pellets i bought her, the food the breeder gave me was a seed,nut,fruit mix, mainly sunflower seeds though and she is crazy for them,she eats fresh fruit and veg just no pellets.
Also she is only noisy around me, she gets along fine with all the other people in my house though shes quite.
Thanks and sorry for the long post, btw some really nice birds on these forums.

 

[LoveMyParrots]

Hi and welcome to the forum.

Which type of vetafarm do you feed your Alex? I feed my Alex vetafarm paradise pellet. And he loves it.

 

[Josh89]

Its Vetafarm complete naturals. i might try the paradise pellets.

 

[LoveMyParrots]

Complete naturals? Never heard of it! Paradise pellet is apple flavored, so your alex might eat it.

 

[Akraya]

Pretend to eat it infront of her, that gets my conures eating anything. My Alex isn't fussy at all, she will eat anything put in front of her! And try mixing it in with her current food, slowly increasing the quantity of pellets. Keep an eye on her weight just to make sure she is eating, and switching foods can take some time so be patient and she'll come around.
My conures won't eat Vetafarm, only Roudybush, Alex will eat either, so you might need to even try a few out!
Good luck with your new Alex =)

 

[lene1949]

Congratulations on your Alexandrine... My alex and electus both eat Vetafarm Paradise pellets...

Here's a video from Vetafarm with suggestions on how to convert to pellets...

[ame=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-zWTxD8Bcw0]Vetafarm - Conversion from Seed to pellet - YouTube[/ame]

 

[BradGC]

They will always choose seeds over pellets.
I guess the best way is to keep them totally off the seeds for a while, and hopefully they'll eat the pellets

 

[Josh89]

Thanks for all the tips. Today i bought a bag on Nutriblend small pellets. So will give them a go. Should i just try giving her the pellets or wait till she is off seed for awhile.

 

[LoveMyParrots]

Give her the pellet and see if she eats it.

I give Ozzie nutriblend pellet as a treat, and he LOVES it. At lease he likes it more than the paradise pellet. But I only use it as a treat because paradise pellet are made specially for exotic parrots like alexandrine.

 

[Josh89]

she has started eating it already so im happy. Im sure its much better than a sunflower seed diet lol. glad it was easy. Ill try the paradise pellet next, the store i didnt have it.

 

[Josh89]

false alarm, she refuses to eat the pellets. ive been giving her a little seed and still lots of fruit and veg, tried mixing it all with pellets but she just picks around it. Any other tips or should i just try whats in the video. Thanks.

 

[wwendy104]

Try softening the pellets with some apple juice and see if she will eat that. It worked on mine when I was converting. Other people have had luck mixing the pellets with a little low sodium chicken broth.

When I converted all my birds I offered them the seed still but made them have to go fetch it so I would put the seed in the dish on top of the cage only. My bird are free all day though until night time when they go to bed but that might not work if your bird has allot of cage time. Also some birds will convert but if you go back to seed for a treat too often they will get an attitude when you don't continue giving it, well at least my African Grey does but she is a little moody sometimes LOL

It can be a frusterating transition for seed junkies just stick with it!

 

[Josh89]

Thanks for that. I tried it with Orange juice (she loves oranges) and tried mixing in a few seeds. She is still not eating it. You think i should stop the seed all together until she does eat the pellets. Or cut out everything including fruit and veg.

 

[khaiqha]

To get my irn onto pellets, I dusted apple slices with crushed pellets. After about a week of that, she was finally eating pellets on her own. I would withhold seeds, because if a bird knows seeds will come, then it can just wait it out till you cave.