picky cockatiel - switching to pellets

Mar 18, 2011

Getting bird to eat pellets
by: Tracie

If you purchased from this site, you should have received a paper from Harrison's that gives their method.

We have a Switching Birds to Pellets article that was written by an avian vet you can try.

Our method is to sit next to the cage with our plate of food. On our plate we have some pellets that we pretend to eat and enjoy. We make a big deal for a few days without offering the bird anything.

After 2 or 3 days, we pretend to eat some pellets and then offer the bird a pellet. If your bird is hand friendly, you can offer it out of your hand, if not then put a few in it's dish. Be sure and count them, so you can determine if they get eaten.

You can start putting a few in the dish every day after that and keep eating next to the cage and offering them to your bird.

After a month of this, empty the dish at night and put 15 pellets in the dish. In the morning, don't give the bird it's seed until after you have been up a couple of hours. Birds are the hungriest in the morning and are more willing to eat new things.

Once you actually see the bird eat a pellet, then put only pellets in the dish when you go to bed and don't offer seeds until the afternoon the next day.

Patience is the key. We had a bird weaned to pellets that wouldn't eat a seed for a year! Hopefully you will have your bird converted soon.

picky cockatiel - switching to pellets

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picky cockatiel - switching to pellets

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