5-6 month cockatiel won't eat anything except Millet

[Birdface1029]

Hello! I made an account here specifically for this issue.
I bought Mochi the cockatiel from a breeder on kijiji.ca (I know I'm silly) and the breeder said he would not sell me a bird unless they were fully weened. Well that seemed to be a lie because she wasn't fully weened when she arrived on my property. He also chopped her wings, but that's a different issue.

I know that millet is good for weening, and I wasn't giving her too much, but I noticed she wouldn't eat UNLESS there was millet in the cage.

Now I've had her three or four months now and she still only wants millet.
I always give her some pellet diet and seed diet, but she never touches them. I put honey powder by NUTRIBIRD on her food to entice her, but she very rarely eats the honey powder.

We also give her tiny fruit pieces and vegetables when we are making meals. She won't touch them. BUT she will eat very small amounts from our plates during social eating. Usually she'll eat tiny amounts of rice, mashed potatoes, or pasta.
BUT ONLY if you are eating out of the same plate as her, if you put the food in the food bowl for her, she won't touch it.

I try to only give her millet when she's starving. The vet said she was already too fat because of the millet. Yesterday she was soooo hungry she ate her own dried poop instead of trying the seeds/pellets/honey powder.

Is there something i could be doing wrong? Introducing her to any food that is safe for birds (including bird brand foods) is not working.

At this point she's only eating millet every couple of days because I can't give it to her everyday, and nothing else.
I'm scared of starving her, but I also know that excessive millet could lead to obesity and liver disease.

I feel like I'm just keeping a bird that's going to die young because of all this.
PLEASE HELP. I've never had a bird with this issue.

 

[LaManuka70]

Welcome to the forums, @Birdface1029, your 'tiel certainly sounds a little stubborn for one so young. At Mochi's young age though, eating millet shouldn't cause too much permanent damage so it's ok to take your time. I once had an EXTREMELY finicky 'tiel called Twinkle who refused to convert to pellets, but she was much older at the time. I even had another 'tiel in the house who was happily eating his pellets, but she refused to follow his example. What ultimately worked was this - I ground up some pellets into a fine powder in a mortar and pestle and sprinkled it over her seed. That way she could not avoid ingesting it and it also meant she got some of their nutrition and grew accustomed to the taste. Over the space of about a fortnight I gradually ground the pellets up less finely, leaving progressively more pellet and less seeds and suddenly Twinkle was eating the pellets like she had done so all her life!

I have found Harrison's LIfetime Fine pellets to be an excellent food for my 'tiels, and I think it helps that it resembles millet too. Some birds can be very picky and some would rather starve than eat a different type of food so care needs to be taken. I hope this method works for you - oh and please post some pics some time cos we would love to see her

 

[Birdface1029]

Welcome to the forums, @Birdface1029, your 'tiel certainly sounds a little stubborn for one so young. At Mochi's young age though, eating millet shouldn't cause too much permanent damage so it's ok to take your time. I once had an EXTREMELY finicky 'tiel called Twinkle who refused to convert to pellets, but she was much older at the time. I even had another 'tiel in the house who was happily eating his pellets, but she refused to follow his example. What ultimately worked was this - I ground up some pellets into a fine powder in a mortar and pestle and sprinkled it over her seed. That way she could not avoid ingesting it and it also meant she got some of their nutrition and grew accustomed to the taste. Over the space of about a fortnight I gradually ground the pellets up less finely, leaving progressively more pellet and less seeds and suddenly Twinkle was eating the pellets like she had done so all her life!

I have found Harrison's LIfetime Fine pellets to be an excellent food for my 'tiels, and I think it helps that it resembles millet too. Some birds can be very picky and some would rather starve than eat a different type of food so care needs to be taken. I hope this method works for you - oh and please post some pics some time cos we would love to see her

Thank you! This advice is helpful and I'm going to try it out.

Welcome to the forums, @Birdface1029, your 'tiel certainly sounds a little stubborn for one so young. At Mochi's young age though, eating millet shouldn't cause too much permanent damage so it's ok to take your time. I once had an EXTREMELY finicky 'tiel called Twinkle who refused to convert to pellets, but she was much older at the time. I even had another 'tiel in the house who was happily eating his pellets, but she refused to follow his example. What ultimately worked was this - I ground up some pellets into a fine powder in a mortar and pestle and sprinkled it over her seed. That way she could not avoid ingesting it and it also meant she got some of their nutrition and grew accustomed to the taste. Over the space of about a fortnight I gradually ground the pellets up less finely, leaving progressively more pellet and less seeds and suddenly Twinkle was eating the pellets like she had done so all her life!

I have found Harrison's LIfetime Fine pellets to be an excellent food for my 'tiels, and I think it helps that it resembles millet too. Some birds can be very picky and some would rather starve than eat a different type of food so care needs to be taken. I hope this method works for you - oh and please post some pics some time cos we would love to see her

Thank you for the reply, I'll definitely try this method out! Mochi thanks you in advance.

 

[DonnaBudgie]

Please stop "starving" Mochi into eating other foods! Its harmful to them physically while their still developing before sexual maturity and harmful psycholgically. She's not going to be more likely to eat other foods if she feels like she's starving- it will just upset her and she will lose trust in you as her "bird mom" caretaker and regress. The social eating you describe is very normal. Encourage it.
Don't worry- a diet of millet won't kill your cockatiel! Many cockatiels eat an all seed diet and live long lives. I'm not saying it's ideal, because we all know it's not. Make sure Mochi gets a lot of exercise to keep her weight down. I know you said her vet says shes overweight but keep in mind that some cockatiels are larger and heavier than others. She may just be a larger one, not overweight. If you can feel her keel (breastbone) she's not overweight. How much does she weigh? Do you have a gram scale so you can weigh her at home? You should since you're trying to convert her diet and you don't want her to lose too much weight in the process.

Whoever told you millet was a good weaning diet was wrong. The foods you use for weaning are the foods she will always prefer, so when I raise baby budgies (I spoon feed- never syringes), I never give them millet as a weaning diet. I mix the smallest Harrisons pellets in with their formula to give it texture and get them accustomed to the taste and they eat it off a baby sized spoon. From there I mix the formula/ pellet mix with chop and they eat it from the spoon. I have 19 budgies and none of them care much about millet spray. I realize you're past this stage but it's good just for future reference.

I had one baby budgie who took 4 months to wean off formula. Every time I opened the fridge Tiki would fly over anticipating being fed, and when I put his formula in the microwave for a few seconds to warm it up (mixed VERY well and temp tested before feeding) he would be all over me. He would eat off a spoon then fly off to play with his friends. I feared he would never wean but he finally stopped and joined the small flock and eat chop, greens, sprouts and seed. I don't feed my adult budgies pellets because they eat a varied diet and less than 50% dry seed.

When you say "millet" do you mean spray millet or millet seeds? Have you tried sprouting her millet and feeding her the sprouts? It's so much healthier than dry seed and most birds love sprouts. I only sprout them to the rootling stage but you can sprout them until they have a leaf stalk. I would try this to get her off dry millet. They say you can sprout millet spray but I've only sprouted millet seeds. Just now, I put a piece of millet spray in a ziplock baggie with water to see if it sprouts.

Do you have any other birds? Mochi may be more likely to eat other food if he sees other birds eating them.

 

[Birdface1029]

I was thinking of getting her a companion in hopes they would teach her to eat. It's spray millet that I feed her. She's definitely eating the Nutribird gold patee which says it has plenty of essential vitamins, but it's just a honey flavored fine crumble. And I fear it's not enough. I don't want to starve her any more.

 

[Zilga39]

Agree with everyone else. Diet conversion is all about the long game. Don't despair; among our birds, the tiels were the worst and took the longest to convert - I think Nuggs (in my profile pic) took like a year. I also agree with the suggestion of using sprouts. Sprouts are what eventually got Nuggs interested in vegetables at all, and neither of my tiels will touch fruit to this day.

 

[osklvste66]

Starving isn't recommended. As above grind the bad with a bit of good and a bit of whole good then she will gradually get used to the good. This could take days or weeks. Have patience. You can do the same thing with a small amount of fruit and veggies. Birds are flock animals. If they see their human flock eating something they often will give it a try. So you eat healthy bird stuff. I know it ain't easy.