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Feeding your bird the correct diet can sometimes be
complicated. Seed and nut diets are not the natural diet for most pet
birds, and are not nutritionally complete. Birds fed these diets need
other foods as well to balance out their diet. Feeding seed only, will
cause your bird to have serious long term health problems. For this
reason, a commercially available pelletted diet is strongly recommended.
Pelleted diets are pre-formulated dry foods similar to dry food for
dogs. These diets are nutritionally complete and balanced AND are
much less messy since there are no empty seed hulls to clean up!
** Important note!**
Do not attempt to change your bird’s diet
to pellets without reading these important instructions!
One
would think that if your bird were hungry enough it would eat whatever
it was offered. However, this is not true! Birds can starve to death
with a full bowl of food in front of them if they don’t like the food or
don’t recognize it as food.
It is not
recommended that you gradually mix the pellets in with the
seeds. This method can cause gradual starvation of your bird!
To
successfully convert your bird’s diet, please follow the following
instructions carefully:
1.
Remove all seed and other foods at night.
(Water should be left available at all times.)
2. First thing
in the morning, offer your bird the pelleted diet only.
3. Leave the
pellets in the cage all day, and observe if your bird is eating them or
not.
4. If your bird
is not eating very many or any pellets, give it its seed back in the
evening for ½ -1 hour only! (This allows your bird time to fill
up so it won’t starve) Then remove all food again overnight.
5. Repeat these
steps until you see that your bird is eating the pellets well during the
day.
6. If so, leave
the pellets in the cage 24 hours a day, and feed nothing but pellets for
at least two weeks. At which time you can begin to offer fresh foods in
addition, but no seeds!
This process may take from a few days to a few weeks, but
if followed carefully should be successful without starving your bird.
Most brands of pelleted bird foods are very good. We
recommend “Harrison’s Bird Diet.” This is the only brand that is all
natural and all organic. Using these diets, you should see an overall
improvement in your bird’s health and appearance by the end of its next
molt!
Ken Slossberg, DVM |
