Odd Pellet Behavior

[Altum]

Just recently we switched our green cheek conure Foggy over to mostly-pellets from a fortified seed diet. He seemed to take to it right away, and maybe even prefers crunching on the pellets to a lot of the things in the seed mixture. (Except for sunflower seeds.)

However, after about a week, I've noticed there's a lot of "dust" building up in his bowl, as if he's cracking or grinding the pellets without eating them. I mixed some seeds with the dust and held off on any new pellets, and he did seem to go back and eat the dust.

Does this sound familiar to anyone? Is he just grinding them up and not eating them? Or is it normal to have some leftover powder?

 

[ToMang07]

My Too thinks it's funny to throw them or put her head in the bowl and "motorboat" them when she's mad.... if dust is your only issue I wouldn't worry about it, lol

 

[Mimsy01]

Ya, Foo turns a lot of her pellets into dust. I just toss it under the wild bird feeders. She takes so long to eat a bag of pellets I dont worry about it.

 

[Flboy]

Same, that's their mission! Pellets to dust!

 

[Kyoto]

Same here. Particularly the Roudybush ones!

 

[Altum]

Thanks everybody! I was concerned he wouldn't be getting the proper nutrition out of them if he was grinding them up, but if it's normal then I won't worry. I do think he likes them as good or better than the seeds! Except for sunflower seeds...

 

[SilverSage]

I feed budgie size pellets to my GCCs and cockatiels. It cuts down on the waste quite a bit.