Converting to Pellets Part 3: Being a Pellet Sneak

After this series of articles, I hope you're excited about converting your birds to a healthier diet. However, many pet birds will not be as excited as their owners about the conversion, and understandably so. In the wild, birds eat seeds, fruit, nuts, bark, insects, or anything else that will fit into their beak. This varied diet, something most pet birds do not receive, helps to ward off any nutritional deficiencies. If you put the conventional seed diet into prospective, the seeds are grown on lands stripped of their nutrients. Every year more and more fertilizers and pesticides go into the ground to support crops, which are then packaged and sent to food manufacturers, both bird and human. These seeds, in the bird industry, are then "fortified" with man-made nutrients, packaged in colorful plastic bags and shipped off to pet stores shelves. The process between harvest and sale can take months, if not longer, depending on the turnover of the individual seed manufacturer. Therefore, although we do not know everything about avian nutrition, pellets are certainly a step in the right direction.

Even after telling your bird all of this, it may still not be keen on trying the new pellets. Human ingenuity comes into play here. How does the bird owner sneak pellets into the unsuspecting bird's food?

The answer lies in healthy treats that the bird adores. The easiest of these to make is "bird bread." Making bird bread doesn't need to be hard. Recipes can be found on many bird sites, including http://www.birdsnways.com/ Birdsnways.com. The easiest way to make bird bread is to purchase the cornbread mixes made by Jiffy breads (around here they sell for under fifty cents a box) and sprinkle pellets on top, or stir them into the batter. How much? A little at first for a picky eater, then up to a cup or more. You may need to add a bit of liquid once you begin adding more pellets to the mix, but unlike humans, birds don't care if their bread is dry or mushy.

Bean mixes rank up there with bird bread as a great way to introduce pellets to the wary bird. Krazy Korn, Birdappetiet, and Max Snacks are just a few brands, or you can make your own. By cooking up different kinds of beans, such as pinto beans, navy beans, black beans, lentils, and peas, you have an inexpensive bean mix. Once the bird is eating this, assuming your bird is already eating a varied diet, then pellets can be added until the bird is used to it.

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