Lovebird Diet

[JackDele]

Hi all,
I'd like to know what you're all feeding your lovebirds and why. What you've tried and didnt like. And what your lovies like the most (other than seed ).

Jackie and I have been locked in an on-again off-again battle to have him eat his vegies for ...oh six years now .

 

[BirdsFTW]

Lovebirds have got to be one of the pickiest parrots in the whole world!! It is ALWAYS a battle to get Mika to eat veggies, but he LOVES sprouts so I'm not as worried.

Mika gets a wide variety of foods... let's see if I can remember all that he gets!!

His main staple includes:
- Harrison's High Potency fine pellets. They are 95% certified organic and an excellent, excellent pellet. I feed High Potency over Adult Lifetime because 1. it's got a higher fat content that African birds require and 2. Mika must TASTE the fat difference because he refuses to eat the Adult Lifetime.
- TOPS Totally Organic Pellets. These are 100% organic. I just recently started Mika on these from a couple of months ago because I wanted variety in his pellets. I'm not sure if he actually even eats these, because I just find a bunch of herb-looking particles. He may just be crumpling them up and not eating them!
- Lafeber's Nutriberries. These are birdy crack in our home!! He doesn't care what flavor, he just loves Nutriberries in general.
- Just Tomatoes "Hot Just Veggies" dried veggie mix. Mika only eats the peas, but I still put the corn, carrots, tomato, and pepper in there.
- Variety of organic nuts. Almonds are a favorite of his.

Current add-ons for variety:
- Beak Appetit mashes or my own mashes. Mika doesn't like mash very much, but will eat it once in a while.
- Fresh/frozen/dried vegetables (besides the Just Tomatoes), fresh/dried fruits. He likes dried papaya and raisins best.
- Sprouts. He loves, loves, loves sprouts and turns into a little piggy when I give it to him - yet he only eats certain sprouts and I don't know what is what.
- "Maya Mix" (what my bf calls it): includes Volkman no sunflower seed mix, Goldenfeast seed mix, Twin Beaks Aviary herb salad and crushed eggshells, Volkman egg food, crushed Nutriberries, organic hulled millet, crushed Harrison's Power Treats.
- Lafeber's Avicakes, popcorn, and Nutrimeals.
- Organic puffed brown rice.

Off the top of my head, these are the main things I can think of that we have right now. He'll also get other things for variety whenever I see something I like. Because we're limited on freezer and pantry space, I usually wait until we run out of one item before buying something different. I'm really wanting to get Lafeber's Pellet-Berries, but no one in Hawaii sells them yet. Every place online wants $32+ just for shipping!! I'm not going to pay DOUBLE to get a container of food, so I'll just have to wait until someone starts carrying it.

Mika gets a LOT of variety overall, but he doesn't eat much of it. He is VERY picky - but that doesn't stop me from giving him the variety.

 

[Allessa]

Maya and I were just discussing this via texting a couple of weeks ago! haha!

Well mine dont have as fancy of a diet =P lol. My lovies get a bowl of tiel seeds, and a bowl that has roudybush pellets mixed with zupreem fruity pellets. Lizzy is the picky one. She mostly sticks to seeds. Stormy likes roudybush..occasionally nibbles the fruity pellets, and hes a bit better with eating fruits/veggies.

 

[AZReno]

By far my bird's favorite foods are wheatberry sprouts and baby spring greens

 

[love4birds]

My lovebirds must be the odd ones out; they are big fat pigs who love their food!

I have been changing their diet slowly over the past few months and still have a couple changes I'd like to make, but here is what they're eating currently:

30% pellets. Rigby eats Harrison's Adult Lifetime Fine, and L&N eat about half that and half TOPs. Rigby refuses to eat TOPs so far.

20% cooked or sprouted grains. They're really not picky at all about their grains! They love quinoa, amaranth, buckwheat, rye, wheat, kamut, oats, and pretty much anything else I offer. Amaranth only gets fed cooked, never sprouted. I often substitue an Avian Organics mash or bread for the grains. They love Mango Medley and Bird Bannock!

10% cooked or sprouted legumes. I offer chickpeas, adzuki beans, mung beans, peas, and lentils. They prefer the peas and lentils, but will eat the others if I chop them up a bit. I tend not to sprout adzuki beans because they take longer than the other types, but all the rest are part of their sprout mix.

25% fresh vegetables and greens. They love chard, peas, beans, celery, carrots, orach, but they will eat other veggies too. Others I offer often include broccoli, cauliflower, winter and summer squashes, sweet potato (cooked), radishes, dandelion greens, kale, mustard greens, and so on. They tend to prefer non-favourite veggies chopped very fine. Sometimes I add the veg&greens into their grains/legumes while they're cooking for something different.

5% fruit. Bananas, apples, and pears are favs! My guys tend not to like the wetter fruits like melons or papaya. Sometimes they'll munch on blueberries, cherries, gojo berries, and figs.

10% seeds, nuts, "other". They get a piece of nut with most meals. Favourites are walnuts, pecans, and almonds, but they will eat pistachios and cashews too. I use safflower seeds as training treats, so they get several of those daily. Seed mix and millet sprays are favourite treats. "Other" includes bits of what I'm eating and different treats.

Examples of a typical meal for my birdies:

 

[bubblelady]

Buddy (RIP} was the odd ball lovie who loved fruit, especially blue berries & cherries. Second favs: apple & melon. She also liked scrambled eggs & corn on the cob. She hated anything green...so in her later years, when the vet said she needed more dark leafy greens, we had a problem. But she always loved to eat from a syringe...never got over her love of her "baby bottle". So I pureed broccoli & mixed it with baby bird hand feeding formula & fed it to her with a syringe. She also liked cooked grains, especially quinoa & oat meal. She lived most of her life on Roudybush, low fat maintainance, till I learned that little birds should have a limited amount of pellets. She also liked Avicakes & nutriberries. And all the canary seed she could rip off from the canary, much to the canary's irritation. And she was fond of sharing my meals, especially roast chicken & any kind of pasta. Unfortunately, she was in her final days before I began learning about proper bird nutrition. I'm trying to do better with Gussie...but she, too, hates anything green. But we're working on it...

 

[mask]

My birds get 60-70% seed, and the rest it made up of.....
pellets
various eggfoods
germinated seeds
fruits n veggies

 

[BirdsFTW]

My birds get 60-70% seed, and the rest it made up of.....
pellets
various eggfoods
germinated seeds
fruits n veggies

Oooooh!! Hey!! Nice to see another familiar face here!!

 

[JackDele]

- Harrison's High Potency fine pellets. They are 95% certified organic and an excellent, excellent pellet. I feed High Potency over Adult Lifetime because 1. it's got a higher fat content that African birds require and 2. Mika must TASTE the fat difference because he refuses to eat the Adult Lifetime.

But I read somewhere that the high protein isn't good ??? Jackie's currently on high potency but I was going to switch him to adult lifetime with my next purchase. What do you think?

 

[JackDele]

My lovebirds must be the odd ones out; they are big fat pigs who love their food!

I have been changing their diet slowly over the past few months and still have a couple changes I'd like to make, but here is what they're eating currently:

30% pellets. Rigby eats Harrison's Adult Lifetime Fine, and L&N eat about half that and half TOPs. Rigby refuses to eat TOPs so far.

20% cooked or sprouted grains. They're really not picky at all about their grains! They love quinoa, amaranth, buckwheat, rye, wheat, kamut, oats, and pretty much anything else I offer. Amaranth only gets fed cooked, never sprouted. I often substitue an Avian Organics mash or bread for the grains. They love Mango Medley and Bird Bannock!

10% cooked or sprouted legumes. I offer chickpeas, adzuki beans, mung beans, peas, and lentils. They prefer the peas and lentils, but will eat the others if I chop them up a bit. I tend not to sprout adzuki beans because they take longer than the other types, but all the rest are part of their sprout mix.

25% fresh vegetables and greens. They love chard, peas, beans, celery, carrots, orach, but they will eat other veggies too. Others I offer often include broccoli, cauliflower, winter and summer squashes, sweet potato (cooked), radishes, dandelion greens, kale, mustard greens, and so on. They tend to prefer non-favourite veggies chopped very fine. Sometimes I add the veg&greens into their grains/legumes while they're cooking for something different.

5% fruit. Bananas, apples, and pears are favs! My guys tend not to like the wetter fruits like melons or papaya. Sometimes they'll munch on blueberries, cherries, gojo berries, and figs.

10% seeds, nuts, "other". They get a piece of nut with most meals. Favourites are walnuts, pecans, and almonds, but they will eat pistachios and cashews too. I use safflower seeds as training treats, so they get several of those daily. Seed mix and millet sprays are favourite treats. "Other" includes bits of what I'm eating and different treats.

Examples of a typical meal for my birdies:

What's your secret?

 

[JackDele]

Thanks for your replies everyone ! Gives me some ideas for future attempts!

 

[BirdsFTW]

It wouldn't be good if Harrison's pellets are a birds ONLY diet - but that goes for any pellet. Mika won't eat eggs, nor does he eat the egg food I give to him - so the protein in the pellets is good for him.

 

[JackDele]

Buddy (RIP} was the odd ball lovie who loved fruit, especially blue berries & cherries. Second favs: apple & melon. She also liked scrambled eggs & corn on the cob. She hated anything green...so in her later years, when the vet said she needed more dark leafy greens, we had a problem. But she always loved to eat from a syringe...never got over her love of her "baby bottle". So I pureed broccoli & mixed it with baby bird hand feeding formula & fed it to her with a syringe. She also liked cooked grains, especially quinoa & oat meal. She lived most of her life on Roudybush, low fat maintainance, till I learned that little birds should have a limited amount of pellets. She also liked Avicakes & nutriberries. And all the canary seed she could rip off from the canary, much to the canary's irritation. And she was fond of sharing my meals, especially roast chicken & any kind of pasta. Unfortunately, she was in her final days before I began learning about proper bird nutrition. I'm trying to do better with Gussie...but she, too, hates anything green. But we're working on it...

This could be my post! Jackie loves (well he'll eat them) watermelon, apple, and corn (sugar ), hates his greens, and loves sharing my porridge in the morning. Jackie and Buddy must have been long lost cousins !

 

[JackDele]

It wouldn't be good if Harrison's pellets are a birds ONLY diet - but that goes for any pellet. Mika won't eat eggs, nor does he eat the egg food I give to him - so the protein in the pellets is good for him.

Okay, I understand! Thanks

 

[love4birds]

What's your secret?

Honestly, I swear by mash! Mash, to me, is a mix of grains, legumes, veggies, and fruit, like in the pics I posted. My guys used to be so stubborn until I started feeding mash. Since they've always loved grains, the grains got them started eating mash, and eventually they started trying the other ingredients in it.

 

[BirdsFTW]

Honestly, I swear by mash! Mash, to me, is a mix of grains, legumes, veggies, and fruit, like in the pics I posted. My guys used to be so stubborn until I started feeding mash. Since they've always loved grains, the grains got them started eating mash, and eventually they started trying the other ingredients in it.

I wish Mika would do that... when I give him mash, he is still picky as #*&% and will only eat certain things and shove the rest out of the way.

 

[JackDele]

Honestly, I swear by mash! Mash, to me, is a mix of grains, legumes, veggies, and fruit, like in the pics I posted. My guys used to be so stubborn until I started feeding mash. Since they've always loved grains, the grains got them started eating mash, and eventually they started trying the other ingredients in it.

Hmm... I was thinking about trying birdie bread for this reason but will have to give mash a try! Thank you

 

[ArloDuncan]

My Little guy Eats the Harrison's high potency Fine pellet also.

But I also alternate between feeding a little seed in the form of either Avi cake , nutra berries, and or sprouts

Also he likes Broccoli, Carrot, Romain lettuce , Kale, Wheat grass, Snap peas and pods , Squash, Sweet potato, Apple,
and Birdy bread and some of the quick cook foods as well.

And I am sure there is more I just can't think of right now. he is actually my best taster of all my fids he will try anything.

 

[bubblelady]

This could be my post! Jackie loves (well he'll eat them) watermelon, apple, and corn (sugar ), hates his greens, and loves sharing my porridge in the morning. Jackie and Buddy must have been long lost cousins !

Well, if Jackie is anything like Buddy, you are in for some WONDERFUL times together. I couldn't wish you anything better than to have a lovie like Buddy Even my vet--who is known for his dark humor--said, in all seriousness after Buddy had boarded at the clinic for 2 weeks; "That's a special bird!",,,and she was. I still miss her sweet little cuddly self.....So feed your baby right from the beginning so you will have a loooooong life together. I got Gussie some Herb Salad today, mentioned on another thread (about seizures in a gray)...BIG hit And it's sort of green

 

[bubblelady]

Also he likes Wheat grass, .

I offered Gussie wheat grass last week. She acted like I had offered her a pot of little green snakes, all poised to strike...flew round & round the living room screaming her head off!