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Introducing New Foods

So you've just got a new bird and it won't eat anything but seed. It is sitting in its quarantine cage on its favorite perch. It ignores your eggfood and your veggies and focuses instead only on the seed dish.

What do you do? This is what has worked for me in the past. It is worth a try.

I start with a leaf of Romaine lettuce. Even though it is not the most nutritional green in the bunch, it is a popular favorite among my birds. Although I usually serve my greens cut up, this time I clip the leaf to the cage right next to a favorite perch. The curious nature of the bird will eventually get the better of him, and he will gradually begin to peck at it (perhaps for something to do, or perhaps because it is annoying him, or perhaps because he thinks it will make excellent nesting material, if only he had a nest). Sometimes this takes several days to weeks, so you have to be patient.

Gradually, after pecking at the lettuce, the bird learns that it is edible and will start to eat the lettuce. Once eating the lettuce somewhat regularly, I'll try other greens. After he/she is eating the greens pretty consistently, I start to chop them up and put them in a treat cup near the same perch. The bird gradually learns that the food has moved to the treat cup (again, you may have to be patient). Once eating out of the treat cup, I add eggfood to the same treat cup. The bird then learns to eat both the eggfood and the greens from the treat cup.

If his quarantine period is over and he still hasn't adopted the new diet, don't worry. Sometimes it takes seeing another bird eating before he will catch on. The important thing is to be patient and to try different things. In the end, you can't force him to eat. All you can do is make it available. One day, he might surprise you.

 

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OTHER TIPS

If your bird eats eggfood, chop up new foods in small bits and mix with the eggfood.

Temporarily house your bird with a good eater. Sometimes seeing another bird eat will encourage a stubborn eater to try new foods.

Try removing the seed for an hour or so first thing in the morning, providing only the new food during this time. If introducing eggfood, you can try mixing a little seed in with the eggfood at first. Just remember to put the seed back in the cage when the hour is up!