When it comes to transitioning a bird to a healthy diet, there are a few things that work:
- Eliminate all protein food from the cage after they eat dinner and serve a healthy breakfast about one hour after sunrise (this is because hunger is the best 'sauce')
- Eat breakfast with them but that means 'their' breakfast and not yours (eating is a flock activity and it's instinctual in them to imitate as they are programmed to learn what to eat from watching their parents) But, I don't know about other people's birds but mine are not fooled by 'pretending' to eat, they watch me like a hawk and make sure I am really eating the stuff so although I hate raw green beans, if that's the veggie they are getting, I'll eat them. I use what I call my 'food mantra', I say the name of the fruit or veggie and tell them it's good like this: "Banana. Banana is good. It's good", eat it and go "Hmmmm, que rica papa (papa is what we call baby food in Spanish)" "Yummy, yummy for the tummy" and "Lookie, lookie, lookie! For the bird for the bird for the bird!" (these last two I say because I have an amazon that says that whenever you give her food). After a while, this ends up creating a conditioned response in them and they associate the words with food that is safe and good to eat.
- Persistence is key. Seed or pellet junkies might take years in achieving a good dietary range of produce but, if you keep at it, you will eventually wear them down and they will eat it.
- Presentation is important. Some birds are very picky as to the shape or position of the food so you will have to try different things with different produce... For example, most of my birds eat raw carrot just sliced in chunks but I have two that would only eat it if it's diced and a CAG that will only eat the coarsely grated one.
- Use a 'medium' to get her to eat healthy until she starts on her own. I use gloop and birdie bread. Gloop is a dish made out of whole grains cooked al dente (so they resemble seeds), with pulses (I only use one kind of bean and one alone: small white beans) mixed with cooked and diced veggies (corn, peas, carrots, chopped broccoli and green beans, butternut diced and baked sweet potatoes in bigger chunks, mote and one more thing which varies, it could be beets for one batch, artichoke hearts for another, etc). Nowadays, I only use the 'regular' gloop for everybody, even new birds, but, with the more recalcitrant ones, I use the 'stages' and start with just the cooked grains (they always go for that), when I see them eating it without a problem, I add corn and peas, when they eat this, I add carrots and chopped broccoli, and so on and so forth... The final product should be 50% veggies, 50% grains and pulses. Birdie bread is the easiest thing in the world if you have a bread machine. I throw all the ingredients in it (whole grain flours like wheat, corn, oatmeal, a couple of spoons of olive oil, another couple of honey or maple syrup, yeast, mashed sweet potatoes and/or pumpkin and/or unsweetened apple sauce, grated carrots and/or zucchini, raisins, currants, cranberries, nuts, etc for the fruity one but you can also make it spicy by eliminating the fruits and adding jalapenos and chopped kale and/or broccoli, etc) before I go to bed and, in the morning, the bread is ready, cooled and ready to be served. They don't care if it comes out too dense and wet (which is almost always the case) or a bit dry, they like it anyway.