I was a seed fanatic too at one time. I thought that this "pellet thing" was pretty silly and no bird would even touch the "dog food."
I'm sure some of you that think that seed is the only thing for your bird, and spend countless hours preparing your birds meal each week. You supplement your bird's diet with apples, carrots, oranges - any and just about everything that will make your bird happy (except for avacado, chocolate, and alcohol of course). You supply it with all the latest nutritional suppliments, you have your Vitamin A, Vitamin B, Vitamin E, Beta Carotene, Spirulina, Blue-green Algae, etc. The list goes on and on and on.
On top of that, your bird doesn't even eat all of its 'Nutritionally Balanced' seed diet! It takes its favorite gourmet seeds out (Ah, let's see, I think I'll have a sunflower, maybe I'll take a couple millet, and then I'll have one of those...) and leaves the rest for you to donate to the outdoor birds.
There are many reasons why pellets are just the optimum decision for your bird's diet. I'll expand more in the next installment.
Converting Methods
- Have the pellet diet placed in the cage for the main part of the day.
Put the regular seed diet only in the cage for short periods of time
in the morning and at night.
- Gradually, over the course of a week or so, slowly reduce the seed diet
and increase the pellet diet. Discontinue process immediately if bird starts
appearing sick or hungry and replace with regular diet.
- Watch your bird. Examine its droppings to make sure they are not
terribly abnormal. A change in the color (eg., brown) is not unusual. Daily
activity should be normal, and the bird should not appear listless or fluffed up. Monitor
the weight to make sure there is not a significant weight loss (more than eight percent).
If your bird is having trouble in any of these areas, you should immediately
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