Can I use the ingedients of good pellet brands and just mix them together myself?

[Phoenixcockatiel]

Hey there!
My cockatiels are really hard to get off seeds and they wont accept pellets yet, but looking up different brands of pellets and reading the ingedients, I have ound them to be made up of seeds, dried vegetables and different kind of herbs.
I'm specifically talking about the TOPS pellets here which I have heard to be some of the best, but they're super expensive.
Can I not just get the ingedients myself and mix them together? I think that would be cheaper and maybe my birds would rather accept it since it looks more familiar to the old seed mix.
Has anyone tried something like this / has an opinion? Thank you in advance!

 

[rheashard2]

It can be done. Depending upon your birds personality. I've mixed a few products (I can only remember NutraBerries) with Harrison's as primary. A few added for variation and a treat. Yours are primarily seed eaters. Get the smallest available or sample packaging. That will decrease out of pocket expense. Consider adding chop too. Parrots can be resistant to dietary change. I add the variety to aid in keeping my CAG a little open-minded about change. There's always a chance of running out.

 

[DonnaBudgie]

Alil you would have is a powdery mixture because the individual ingredients are ground up like flour them mixed together. The ingredient list isn't a recipe and doesn't include the water or other liquid that's added to the dry ingredients to make a batter. Tops then uses a manufacturing process called cold pressing that results in hard, dry uniform pellets. There is no way you could manufacture your own pellets. It would be like trying to make cookies with nothing but a list the dry ingredients and no quantities, recipe or oven.

However, you can make your own parrot foods in the form of birdie breads or 'chop" (a mixture of cooked grains, beans, nuts, chopped vegetables, cooked and mixed in large batches and frozen in portions). Many Parrot Forum members make chop that they feed their birds every day. Birdie bread is much loved by many parrots. Are your cockatiels willing to eat anything other than seed mix?

There's a section under Forums that has many recipes for chop and instructions on making birdie bread.

You can also feed your cockatiels fresh vegetables whole, chopped up, finely grated, or cut into shapes they find appealing. Most birds like dark green leafy veggies like fresh spinach or kale.

It may take time to get your cockatiels to eat chop or birdie bread if they've been on an all seed diet. ave you ever tried getting your cockatiels to eat cooked rice? It's not a regular diet but If they are willing to eat cooked rice they would probably be willing to eat chop because it often has cooked rice and other cooked grains in it with a similar consistency.

 

[wrench13]

I think it possible to do, if you have unlimited time and dont mind the effort. Easier to just get your birds to eat the TOPS pellets.

 

[ParrotSnakeMan]

I feed all three of my birds a mixture of the 3 foods shown. The Zupreme Nutrismart has too much freeze dried fruit so I tend to remove that and feed sparingly as a treat.

I tried Harrison’s on its own and they do eat it but eat more pellet food in general once I started offering the mixture.

Each bird has their favorite items in the mix but seems to enjoy the variety. I had tried several different high quality pellets before finally landing on the 3 in the picture.

 

[DonnaBudgie]

I think it possible to do, if you have unlimited time and dont mind the effort. Easier to just get your birds to eat the TOPS pellets.

The beauty of pellets is that all the ingredients are in each bite- the ingredient list shows what they're getting and they can't just eat their favorite things and toss out the rest. Making your own mix of the ingredients without blending them and forming pellets out of the blend often results in very expensive wasteful cherry picking.