How to get my GCC to eat pellets?

[tweetya]

I have a 4-month-old GCC and I'm trying to change his diet. I bought him the Zupreem Natural pellets.

When I first put the pellets into his food bowl, he started eating a little bit of it. I was excited to find out that it might be easy to change his diet. He still had seeds in his cage and it was located at the top of the cage where he sleeps. The next few days, he stopped eating the pellets. I try hand feeding it to him, but all he did was play with it then dropped it.

I thought, maybe he didn't like that it was hard, so I moisturized it with filtered water. He still didn't eat it. Now, he doesn't eat it at all even if he's really hungry.

 

[noodles123]

You can't cut them off or a stubborn bird can starve, so you are right to take it slow.

Have you tried pretending to eat them while kind of ignoring him at the table from a human plate/bowl LOL? If he has ever gotten food from you, he might associate the things you eat with being "special"/extra tasty....Not sure if it will work, but I have definitely put pellets in my mouth and pretended to chew them up LOL---It kind of worked...
You could try a different brand too-- some birds just don't like certain pellets.

Is he eating his seeds still at least? Just wanting to make sure he is eating something....

 

[Talven]

Other tricks you can try are :-

Grind them into dust and sprinkle on seeds and other favoured treats to get them used to the taste.

Softening them into a malleable putty and mix his seeds in with it. Roll them into little pellets and let them dry. That way he has to chew the pellets to get to the seed and tastes them.

Mixing a 50/50 blend of seed and pellets and gradually reducing the amount of seed over several weeks.

THIS IS RISKY AND I DON'T RECOMMEND Take away ALL seed and replace with pellets. If after a couple (48hrs) of days your bird hasn't eaten the pellets return the seed and try again after several days. I would only try this method if I have access to a scale and could weigh the bird daily.

Only offer seed for 15 - 20 mins a day but leave the pellets out all day. Again a bit risky if you have a stubborn bird. Again I would only use this method if I could weigh the bird daily.

I'm sure other members have different methods but these are what I can remember.

 

[tweetya]

You can't cut them off or a stubborn bird can starve, so you are right to take it slow.

Have you tried pretending to eat them while kind of ignoring him at the table from a human plate/bow LOL? If he has ever gotten food from you, he might associate the things you eat with being "special"/extra tasty....Not sure if it will work, but I have definitely put pellets in my mouth and pretended to chew them up LOL---It kind of worked...
You could try a different brand too-- some birds just don't like certain pellets.

Is he eating his seeds still at least? Just wanting to make sure he is eating something....

He's still eating his seeds, fruits and nutriberries. I check an hour after I give him pellets to see if he ate any, if he didn't I feed him one of the three I mentioned.

 

[tweetya]

Other tricks you can try are :-

Grind them into dust and sprinkle on seeds and other favoured treats to get them used to the taste.

Softening them into a malleable putty and mix his seeds in with it. Roll them into little pellets and let them dry. That way he has to chew the pellets to get to the seed and tastes them.

Mixing a 50/50 blend of seed and pellets and gradually reducing the amount of seed over several weeks.

THIS IS RISKY AND I DON'T RECOMMEND Take away ALL seed and replace with pellets. If after a couple (48hrs) of days your bird hasn't eaten the pellets return the seed and try again after several days. I would only try this method if I have access to a scale and could weigh the bird daily.

Only offer seed for 15 - 20 mins a day but leave the pellets out all day. Again a bit risky if you have a stubborn bird. Again I would only use this method if I could weigh the bird daily.

I'm sure other members have different methods but these are what I can remember.

Thank you! I'll try some of these methods.

 

[LaManuka]

The technique of grinding to a powder and sprinkling it over other foods worked for me. My cockatiel at the time had resisted all other attempts at conversion but when I tried this she started eating pellets within a matter of a few days and never looked back