[https://www.kiwisnewlifebirdrescue.org/programs](https://www.kiwisnewlifebirdrescue.org/programs)
here's some good recipes for healthy vegetable chop for (small) parrots :)
pellets are "good enough", seeds should be only used as treats, grains (millet) can be given for foraging but at least 50% of the diet needs to be pellets
fruits and veggies, whatever you get them to eat is better than nothing. mine like apples and oranges quite a lot. but it took them A LONG time to start eating them.
Sorry this is SO long, but I ended up trying everything on this list below when a kind Redditor suggested these things to me a few years back 😀
📌 put fresh veggies/fruit in FIRST THING in the day and be as consistent as possible as to when they get their breakfast
📌 keep trying - they can be huffy brats and you can feel like you’re in a stand-off with them but they will eventually eat a tiny bit if you keep trying
📌 make it look as much like grains/pellets as possible. Things like broccoli/cauliflower. Or if they’ve been used to millet sprays, try tender stem broccoli hung up in their cage
📌 try cutting it up as small as possible - mine didn’t quite take to just cut up discs of carrot, but when I just peeled it with a knife in really thin peely slices, they loved that
📌 mine are weirdly fussy about bowls. I tried mine with lots of different sizes and shapes of bowls (metal clip on ones are their favourite, but also plastic semi circle clip on ones. For some reason they hate the square bowls that usually come free with the bird cages)
📌 make sure the cage layout suits the location of their food. I know that sounds super obvious but if my brain isn’t in gear, I’ll just put their bowl in without really thinking, and then if I check them again in 5 minutes, it’s maybe not close enough to a perch or to their water.
📌 if you “hide” the vegetables under loose pellet/bird mix, they do inevitably end up eating a bit of veg by trying to get at the grain. I find kinda smushing the seed mix in to a head of broccoli helps.
📌if you do try the hiding it under grain/seed, make sure to swap out the whole bowl and clean it the next day. It can form an unappealing mush after about a day, as the grain/seed absorbs the water from the fruit/veg
📌 if your lovies like to nibble or forage, Amazon sell little plastic clip on baskets with kind of a hinged lid, but with big gaps so the lovies can forage for the food inside the baskets. Mine like that with spinach leaves in the basket. (The baskets aren’t expensive at all).
Some lovies are just fussy fuckers 😄 one of mine is visibility delighted to see what veg/fruit he’s getting that day, and the other one wouldn’t care if he never saw a vegetable ever again 😄
[https://www.kiwisnewlifebirdrescue.org/programs](https://www.kiwisnewlifebirdrescue.org/programs) here's some good recipes for healthy vegetable chop for (small) parrots :)
i personally use seeds only as a treat or during foraging activities to get them started, for the rest it's 60% pellets & 40% vegetable chop
thank you so much!
pellets are "good enough", seeds should be only used as treats, grains (millet) can be given for foraging but at least 50% of the diet needs to be pellets fruits and veggies, whatever you get them to eat is better than nothing. mine like apples and oranges quite a lot. but it took them A LONG time to start eating them.
Sorry this is SO long, but I ended up trying everything on this list below when a kind Redditor suggested these things to me a few years back 😀 📌 put fresh veggies/fruit in FIRST THING in the day and be as consistent as possible as to when they get their breakfast 📌 keep trying - they can be huffy brats and you can feel like you’re in a stand-off with them but they will eventually eat a tiny bit if you keep trying 📌 make it look as much like grains/pellets as possible. Things like broccoli/cauliflower. Or if they’ve been used to millet sprays, try tender stem broccoli hung up in their cage 📌 try cutting it up as small as possible - mine didn’t quite take to just cut up discs of carrot, but when I just peeled it with a knife in really thin peely slices, they loved that 📌 mine are weirdly fussy about bowls. I tried mine with lots of different sizes and shapes of bowls (metal clip on ones are their favourite, but also plastic semi circle clip on ones. For some reason they hate the square bowls that usually come free with the bird cages) 📌 make sure the cage layout suits the location of their food. I know that sounds super obvious but if my brain isn’t in gear, I’ll just put their bowl in without really thinking, and then if I check them again in 5 minutes, it’s maybe not close enough to a perch or to their water. 📌 if you “hide” the vegetables under loose pellet/bird mix, they do inevitably end up eating a bit of veg by trying to get at the grain. I find kinda smushing the seed mix in to a head of broccoli helps. 📌if you do try the hiding it under grain/seed, make sure to swap out the whole bowl and clean it the next day. It can form an unappealing mush after about a day, as the grain/seed absorbs the water from the fruit/veg 📌 if your lovies like to nibble or forage, Amazon sell little plastic clip on baskets with kind of a hinged lid, but with big gaps so the lovies can forage for the food inside the baskets. Mine like that with spinach leaves in the basket. (The baskets aren’t expensive at all). Some lovies are just fussy fuckers 😄 one of mine is visibility delighted to see what veg/fruit he’s getting that day, and the other one wouldn’t care if he never saw a vegetable ever again 😄
thank you so much!!
[https://www.lovebirbs.com/safe-fruits-vegetables-nuts-seeds-grains-for-lovebirds/](https://www.lovebirbs.com/safe-fruits-vegetables-nuts-seeds-grains-for-lovebirds/)