Please Help with Feeding Behaviour

[phillytt]

Hi,

I've had my baby african grey since she was only a few months old and is now 7 years old... she's been fed primarily on Kaytee Exact Rainbow pellets as this is what the breeder told me was best and she was raised on. She gets fresh fruit/vegetables... not often enough, but semi-frequently, and more so of late.

I've experimented with alternate pellets for her including,

ZuPreem Fruit Blend (loved)
ZuPreem Vege Blend (meh, not so much)
PrettyBird Species Specific African Grey (enjoys)
NutriBerries as treats (not interested)

Harrisons 2x varieties (not interested, did not go well) ..and she only has seeds as treats....


After some recent reading I read that TOPS pellets and Harrisons were still the most recommended two to give, as no colours, low sugar and not stuffed full of 'filler' (wheat?)... so this time i purchased two big bags of:

TOP'S Outstanding Pellets Natural Parrot Food - will not touch.

Harrisons High Potency - I bought the tiny pellet version thinking she'd nibble on them easier, along with her larger, TOPS or fruity stuff, or with seeds even... but the size trick seems to have compeltely backfired.

plus a smaller bag of TOP's Seed Mix - thinking if she likes seeds as treats maybe she'd eat these 'healthier' seeds easy too.. but no.


She hates all of it!

Won't touch the stuff. So much so that I had to buy a (small) bag of the PrettyBird again just so she'd eat. I've tried mixing the newer stuff in but she just picks out the coloured fruity stuff and leaves everything else. Every time.


Im wondering how i can convert her off the coloured stuff onto the beige bland looking stuff and any tips, help or advice you can give to help me do this?

I'm prepared to buy another large back of the Kaytee Rainbow Exact if needed to mix it in with the new stuff and, my only idea was to seperate them all out into various varatiosn of mix, changing the ratio of coloured:bland food. So maybe feed 90/10 for 2 months, then drop down to 70/30 ..... 50/50 .... 30/70 and work my way to 10/90, 0:100 with each ratio being fed for 'whatever' period of time. 2-3 months?

Because shes not been eating it at all, ive stopped 'wasting' the good stuff but just putting in a few or couple of pieces of the new stuff with her regular each feed (and dropping the quantity of coloured pellets) hoping shed at least try it and i can moinitor consumption, but she literally just leaves all of the new stuff.

Please help!

 

[Skarila]

For how many hours do you leave the new pellets for the bird? You can try swapping the bowls between old and new pellets during the day, so she can get her food in morning, but during day (not more than 6h) can eat only the new ones, and then swap back the old one for another hour or two.
Also slowly changing the ratio slowly could do the trick too, but be vary that as you said she will pick out the fruity colourful ones first, and will be left only with the blands. Do not top the bowl with old pellets for 4-6h (you can weight her during this process just to make sure she doesn't lose weight)

Is she aware that the bland pellets are edible? If she's one of those birds that must have whatever you are eating you can try pretending that you are eating and then offer her.

You can keep offering the new pellets from time to time, some people litteraly need months and months to switch, I was super lucky with my birds that it took me less than a month from seeds to pellets, for my conure it took 3 days, while for my budgie it took 7 years to even try the pellets.

 

[Skarila]

Oh, I forgot to mention, Maybe you can try with Roudybush instead, they are also high quality, aaaand they have apple flavouring, so maybe your grey will prefer those My conure LOVES it.