Why Does My Bird… Not Eat Pellets?
Published on April 07, 2015
Many birds won’t eat pellets because they don’t recognize them as food, or the pellets are mixed in with other foods (such as high-fat, tasty seed) that they pick out preferentially over the pellets. That’s not a good idea because you want your bird to eat pellets.
Seeds are completely devoid of vitamins and minerals and are almost all fat. To urge birds to eat pellets, pellets should not be mixed with other food items. For encouragement, bird owners should pretend to eat pellets, too, and enthusiastically praise their birds for interacting with and tasting the pellets. Initially, pellets can be ground into a fine powder and sprinkled over favorite foods to get birds to try them. Eventually, pellet pieces should become larger and the amount of other food should be reduced until the pellets are offered alone. Converting your bird to a pellet diet, if he is not already eating one, should be done under the supervision of a veterinarian.
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