Lepidina wrote:
> Hi all,
>
> I've got a pair of very stubborn parakeets that won't eat anything but
> seed. The first two I had converted over to pellets pretty easily and
> would eat a variety of veggies. These two snub their noses at
> everything other than their junk seed and one is starting to show
> signs of vitamin A deficiency. They're both about a year old and I
> got them as a birthday present when they were about 4 months old so
> they were already on seed.
>
> Any help? Mixing the seed doesn't seem to work. If I take it all out
> and put in the pellets, they won't eat. They ignore any other food
> like cereal, cooked spaghetti (I used to have a 'keet that would beg
> for spaghetti), veggies, etc. I've tried the Nutraberries but I have
> to crumble them up for them to eat it. The Pretty Bird pellets
> weren't a big hit and they currently are trying the Roundybush
> crumbles. *sigh*
>
Every bird is different.  I had one who *adored* celery and celery leaves
but would turn his beak up at any other kind of veggie.  However, I did feed
him a seed diet with dehydrated veggies mixed in (I'm sorry, I don't recall
the brand).  He lived to a ripe 14 years without ever having a pellet.  No
harm, no foul.

> And how long does it take to hand tame a parakeet? These guys are
> rather resistant to that as well, little buggers.
> Thanks in advance for the help!
>
> Deb

IMHO you should have started hand-taming them when you first got them, when
they were still 4 months old.  Also, having a pair of them, while nice for
each other, is a bit distracting when trying to acclaimate them to playing
with people.  It's like putting a mirror in the cage and expecting the bird
to pay attention to something other than its reflection.

Jill
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