New member from FL

[Risingsouth]

I just got my first bird, a Green cheek conure. We think she is a female and we call her Emma. Emma is a sweet and loves to cuddle. Her favorite food is blueberries. I am having trouble getting her to eat her pellets. Any advice would be great.

 

[henpecked]

Yeah ,don't let her run the house,LOL.Welcome to the forum,for a smaller bird conures have the biggest personalities.

 

[roxynoodle]

I have to agree that conures really are large parrots in smaller bodies.

You may want to experiment with the types of pellets. My Blue Crown was very hard to convert, but it was the fruit flavored Zupreem that finally got her to taste one. And it seems there are a lot of other conures here that prefer those as well. I did make the process slow by introducing some into her food dish each day. Once I saw her eat one, I began moving more rapidly, putting in less seed each day and more pellets. Once I knew she was eating plenty of pellets, I stopped seed altogether. Now my new amazon doesn't seem to care at all for the Zupreem except to eat the purple ones. He likes the color purple I've learned. However I saw him eat a Harrison's pellet so I am converting him to those.

I think conures really have a thing for the colored pellets. The colors interest and excite them more perhaps than other parrots.

If you are persistent about it, they can be converted. My amazon ate seed for 28 years and now I have him almost on pellets entirely. His former owner said nope, no way will you get him to eat one. Well, he is! It might be a bit easier to start as soon as they come into a new home. They don't have any expectations yet.

 

[antoinette]

Welcome....
Emma is so so cute, OMG she is too beautiful
Thanks for sharing the lovely picture

 

[IcyWolf]

Emma is adorable! Congrats on your first steps into the parrot world As far as the pellets were concerned, our conure wouldn't touch them, I tried mixing them in with his pellets, offering them as treats, nothing worked until one day I ran out of seed and gave him only a bowl of pellets. Within 2 hours he was crunching on the pellets like it was his normal everyday diet! I have a friend that recently adopted an african grey and she told me about how he wouldn't eat pellets. Then one day, the same thing happened to her, she ran out of seed so she only gave him pellets until she went to the store later, and what do you know, he started eating them lol. I was afraid to try the pellet only method, I was afraid that he would starve himself before he would touch them, but let's just say he wasn't nearly as strong willed about it as I thought. He still refuses to eat the orange or the purple ones(I also use the zupreem fruit blend) but it's still better than nothing.

 

[oled]

Welcome to the forum!! A lovely bird!!

 

[MikeyTN]

Welcome to the forum!

Like it was mentioned already, try just giving just pellets and see what happens. Some birds are more stubborn then others.

 

[roxynoodle]

Emma is adorable! Congrats on your first steps into the parrot world As far as the pellets were concerned, our conure wouldn't touch them, I tried mixing them in with his pellets, offering them as treats, nothing worked until one day I ran out of seed and gave him only a bowl of pellets. Within 2 hours he was crunching on the pellets like it was his normal everyday diet! I have a friend that recently adopted an african grey and she told me about how he wouldn't eat pellets. Then one day, the same thing happened to her, she ran out of seed so she only gave him pellets until she went to the store later, and what do you know, he started eating them lol. I was afraid to try the pellet only method, I was afraid that he would starve himself before he would touch them, but let's just say he wasn't nearly as strong willed about it as I thought. He still refuses to eat the orange or the purple ones(I also use the zupreem fruit blend) but it's still better than nothing.

My BC would never eat the orange or purple ones either, lol! So I would pick them all out every morning and put them in the Nanday's dish. Those are the Nanday's 2 favorite colors though and she eats all those first. At least that way they didn't go to waste.