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22 Apr 2014

Do Birds Prefer Seed Or Pellet?

Posted By : Guest

Filed Under : Nutrition | Birds | Roudybush | Bird Food | Pet Care

Congratulations on your efforts to provide your feathered friend with optimum nutrition. Seed is never a balanced diet and results in severe nutritional deficiencies that will result in the early death of your bird.

After years of healthy eating with uncoloured Roudybush Maintenance pellets as the staple diet, what do parrots prefer when given the choice of a sunflower seed or pellet as a treat? 10 out of 10 they picked Roudybush pellets over sunflower seeds. Once in a while they just like something different for fun or variety and that's perfectly normal. If pellets make up the dominant portion of their diet, this is absolutely considered to be more healthy by avian veterinarians. Interestingly the same results continued for pellets vs nuts as long as the nut wasn't bigger than the pellet. However, the birds will often go for a small piece of pellet over an average piece of nut or seed.

Feeding a pelleted diet is essential to maintaining a healthy pet bird. Here are some hints to help you with the process.

Ringnecks, Conures, Alexandrines, Galahs and Cockatoos

Those birds that are inquisitive and accept any human foods, including fruit and vegetables may work best to completely remove seed from their diet and replace it with pellets. Place the pelleted food in the existing seed dish and ensure there is plenty of fresh fruit and vegetables on offer. Should the bird have free range and access to human meals – you may wish to offer the pellets as a “treat”.

Gradual Introduction:

For those birds that have been in a seed only diet for many years, we suggest you replace the seeds with the pelleted food. Restrict the amount of seed to perhaps 1-2 tablespoons per day. Monitor the pellets carefully and when you can see the bird is interested ( mouthing, picking up the pellets or even tossing them about) reduce the amount of seed on offer by half. These birds should also have access to fresh fruit and vegetables. This will of course be foreign to them. They often do not recognize these offerings as food.

Cockatiels, Budgies, Canaries and Finches

For our smaller (<100gms) feathered friends we approach conversion a little differently. We suggest you have 2 containers – their existing seed dish will now contain pellets/crumbles and a new dish (in a new position in their cage) will contain 1 heaped teaspoon of seed. Supply this daily for 1 week. At the beginning of second week, reduce the seed to a level teaspoon once a day. Every week, reduce the quantity of seed until the bird is hungry enough to be tempted by the pellets or crumbles. If concerned, monitor your birds weight daily to assess weight loss.

SOME PRACTICAL TIPS:

• DO PERSIST
• DO provide fruits and vegetables during conversion
• DO monitor birds weight during conversion
• DO use sunflower seeds as treats or rewards
• DO NOT MIX seed and pellets (Have separate containers)
• Once converted birds generally accept changes to pellet types

Good luck with the task of converting your bird to a pelleted diet. You can be assured that your bird will have a longer, healthier life as a result. Please do not hesitate to call should you require any further assistance. We are sure you will notice a change in your bird’s well being…as they say, we are what we eat!

Converting Your Bird’s DIET to Roudybush

Most birds are creatures of habit and will choose foods that look familiar to them. Converting your bird to Roudybush is mainly a matter of convincing your bird that it is food. There are several methods that can be used; choose the one that is most appropriate for your bird. The most important factor in switching your bird to Roudybush is your determination that it will eat a nutritious, balanced diet. Your bird may initially act as if it does not like Roudybush, but imagine a child that you are trying to convert from a diet of snack foods, candy and ice cream to a lower fat, healthy diet; it is a similar situation. Once your bird makes the transition you will find that it enthusiastically eats Roudybush.

1. Instinctual

The instinctual method can be used with a healthy bird that you can only monitor irregularly. It takes advantage of your parrot’s instinct to eat at the highest location possible. It allows your bird access to its normal food while providing you the opportunity to know exactly what food it is eating. Place the bird’s familiar dish in a low part of its cage. Put your bird’s old food in this dish. Fill a similar dish with Roudybush pellets and place it in a higher part of the cage and be sure to place all water sources near this dish. Since the bird prefers eating from the higher dish, it will try the new food and start eating it. Eventually, Roudybush pellets will be the main food eaten by your bird. When the amount of food disappearing from the bottom dish is reduced to less than 10% of the food disappearing from the higher dish, try removing the lower dish from the cage. After removal of the lower dish, monitor your bird to be sure it is eating as described in 2 at right.

2. Controlled

This method should be used with a very finicky, difficult to switch bird that is starting out at a good weight. It is generally the quickest, easiest method for switching most birds. Do not use this method on a thin bird, sick bird, or a bird you cannot monitor. Remove the old food and replace it with Roudybush. Clean the cage at the time of the switch and line it with paper. Do not use corncob or other litter because you won’t be able to monitor droppings well. Watch your bird’s droppings or weigh your bird daily. When a bird isn’t eating, the droppings will be very small and the green part will be very dark green, almost black. Or you may see a lot of urine (liquid) but almost no green part, which means your bird is filling up on water and not eating much.

Give nothing but Roudybush and water for two full days for small species or three days for larger species. If at the end of this period your bird’s droppings indicate it isn’t eating, put your bird back on its old diet for 7 days, and then repeat the switching process. Most birds will convert the first time, and those that won’t switch the first time usually switch the second time. If you can weigh your bird, keep your bird on Roudybush unless it loses more than 3% of its starting body weight. At that point, put your bird back on the old diet for one week then repeat the switch process, weighing your bird at the start of the switch. Disappearance of food from the food dish is not a reliable way of determining if your bird is eating. Most birds will spill the new food out of the dish, looking for familiar foods.

3. Gradual Introduction

This method is best for a bird that is likely to try new foods or a bird that cannot be monitored carefully. Mix the Roudybush into your bird’s normal diet, ¼ Roudybush mixed with 3/4 old diet. Gradually increase the proportion of Roudybush over a 3–4 week period. When you have reached the point where more than 3/4 of the diet is Roudybush, clean your bird’s cage and line it with paper. Watch the droppings to make sure your bird is eating. Small, very dark droppings indicate that your bird is not eating. If that is the case, add back more of your bird’s old diet until the droppings return to normal. Continue increasing the proportion of Roudybush more slowly, watching the droppings.

4. Handfeed as a treat

Some birds will eat almost anything they think you are eating. Act as if you are eating the Roudybush then offer some to your bird. This can be sufficient to teach your bird that Roudybush is food. Then the old food can be replaced with Roudybush. Again, watch the droppings when you make the complete switch.

5. Soak the Roudybush in juice

Some birds like moist foods and like certain fruits or fruit juices. Putting a bowl of pellets soaked in orange juice, apple juice, or fruit nectars may entice such a bird to eat the pellets. If this method is used make sure you only leave the soaked pellets in the cage for an hour or so to prevent spoilage. Once the bird is eating the soaked pellets, gradually decrease the amount of juice.

About Pet Habitat

Pet Habitat is an online pet store which sells advanced nutritional pet foods and offers a complete selection of pet accessories of the finest quality for all your Aquarium, Bird, Reptile and Small Animal needs in South Africa. We are committed to making the lives of pets better. We aim to do this by providing high quality homes such as hamster cages, bird cages, guinea pig cages, rabbit cages, chinchilla cages and tropical and marine fish tanks, as well as great pet food that's good for your pet’s health as well as being deliciously tasty. Pet Habitat represents some of the world’s finest pet manufacturers and is the exclusive distributor for brands such as AquaEl, Burgess, Rotastak, Pet Inn, Roudybush, AquaSzut and Marine Pure.

Please note we are not a walk-in pet store. We dispatch all goods from our warehouse, so if you want to arrange a pick-up in person, you'll need to order ahead and let us know when you'll be coming.