Last Updated on by Catherine Tobsing
Good Morning Friends, I absolutely love your newsletter. I have a 25 year old African Grey parrot I raised from a lil guy (private breeder).
He loves to lose/pick/pluck his feathers. He is out all day from his cage should he desire.
I need your help with food. He refuses green food products.
He is of course spoiled. Loves sunflower seeds, pistachios, and some fruits.
Big 0 on veggies. Is there any way you can suggest food I can purchase from you?
I have bought food from a private party (Great Grains, in Hickory Hills) in the past and the owner does not do too much anymore due to age and Covid after effects.
Please feel free to contact me.
Thank you in advance for your help and support.
All Best,
Alex
Dear P. Alex
Thank you for the kind words.
Sorry for the problems with your bird’s diet.
I remember Great Grains, it was a blend created by June and Alice, then when they retired, Virginia acquired the recipe and sold the mix.
I did not know that she had suffered health problems from Covid. I do understand the aging issues. I have them too.
What is your Greys main diet? And how are you providing and serving it?
All of our birds are rescues and as such most came from people who never offered much of a varied diet. But over time, they all have expanded what they will eat due to how we feed them.
We have 10 small parrots in 5 cages. 6 budgies in one large cage and then a ringneck, a Quaker and 2 cockatiels, each with their own cages.
They have schedules for everything including eating.
At 8:30 am their cage lights come on and a couple of them are let out of their cages (as they don’t need supervising). At this time they have only a dish of seeds and pellets and a water dish in each cage, (the 6 budgies have 3 seed dishes and 2 water dishes).
In the morning I prepare a dish for each cage (2 for the budgie cage) with freshly cut and chopped veggies and a little apple. They get 3-4 hours with the dish before it gets pulled to dump and wash, regardless of how much they have eaten.
Mitch totes two of the birds (African ringneck and Quaker) to their day cages by my desk at about 10 am.
They dive in headfirst to their veggie dishes. They also have their dry food dish to eat out of. I only give them 1/4 cup of the dry mix at a time so they have the room to shift the stuff around the dish, find the nuts and other bits that they might like.
One note: We do not give them seed mixes with sunflower seeds, I find that they will toss everything around trying to find that one elusive sunflower seed.
If they don’t have them in their mix, they don’t toss and dig. However, Mitch started to give them sunflower seeds as their bedtime snack at 8 pm and they really like that.
At the end of the work day with me (4 pm) Mitch takes them back to their big home cages. They don’t get along so they are let out of their big cages alternately through the evening.
The cockatiels and the budgies are also allowed out of their cages when we are in the room and can be supervised. A couple of the budgies are older and don’t fly well anymore so if they end up out of the cage they might not make it back inside.
One of the cockatiels is in love with the ringneck who doesn’t appreciate the affection and has had a couple toes nipped, so he has to be watched when out.
At 8 pm, all of the birds are corralled back into their respective cages where they get a bedtime treat. It is usually a bit of Avi-cake for the ringneck and the Quaker and for the 2 cockatiels and the 6 budgies, they get a couple 2″ long chunks of spray millet.
If we are not paying attention, one or more of them will start chirping or calling out and that causes us to look at the clock and see that it is Birdie Bedtime and they want their snacks.
When we first had the budgies, all rescues, they were under Mitch’s care. But I felt they needed to be eating veggies too and started offering them romaine or kale, clipped into a water dish (with water to keep it fresh) for them to pick at.
Then I started chopping the kale, mixed veggies and apple in a small electric chopper and offered that to the budgies.
Well, they immediately refused the piles in the dishes, until I sprinkled some millet on top of the veggie dish. That worked to entice them to taste the veggies and they began to really enjoy them.
I no longer needed to sprinkle the dishes with millet.
We had started with just the ringneck (Keto) and the budgies, then a few years later (2020) we took in the Quaker and the cockatiel.
Neither of them had eaten veggies before but watching the budgies and ringneck eat them, they started to try and now they all eat them.
The last cockatiel has only been with us for 3 weeks or so.
A local person who has a bunch of cats found the bird and asked us to take it in. He is starting to try the veggie/apple dish we offer.
Somedays it appears that no one has eaten ANY of it, but I continue to provide the dishes EVERY DAY anyway. If I don’t I feel I am not giving them a chance to eat some.
Having them on a schedule has caused them to all know what is coming and when.
It helps with bedtime cage corralling as well. It is amazing how quiet 10 birds will be at 8 pm while they are enjoying their bedtime snacks.
At 8:30 pm all their cage lights go off for the night automatically.
You have had your Grey for almost 25 years?
Are you just now trying to offer fresh foods? It is a lot harder now, but not impossible.
Using a skewer to hang broccoli or fresh corn on the cob chunks can cause some interest while they sit on their perch and it is right next to them.
If you are just trying to replace the Great Grains mix you might need to look at the ingredients and see if you can replicate it yourself.
We do have a line of cookable bird food mixes by Higgins called Worldly Cuisines. They are very well accepted and you might wish to try one or more of them.
You can find them here.
Regards
Catherine
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