Parakeets will not stop eating eachothers food!

[saphgoose]

Hi. Going to try and make this as short as possible.
I have three parakeets, two I have owned since they were babies (We will call them green and blue) and one who I took in from a friend recently (picky bird) because the other bird they had passed away. The three have continued to get along great in the past few months, however picky bird has always eaten a seed diet (with copious amounts of fruits and veggies to make up for nutrition). I have tried to switch him over to a pellet/seed mix diet like my birds have always eaten, but everytime he ate from the same mix he would push ALL of the pellets out in search of seeds, which I immediately knew I had to stop because the pellets are EXPENSIVE, it makes an INSANE mess and my birds need those pellets.
As of yesterday I have gotten picky bird his own seed mix without pellets so that he can eat his own food and my birds can eat theirs, however all three of my birds try to eat eachothers food! Although I put picky birds food in his own cage (Used to first introduce all three together, now he stays in green and blues cage because he gets lonely) and have shown him where his food is numerous times, he still tries to eat my birds food. Green and blue also have caught onto this and I will sometimes catch them going to picky birds bowl to eat his food.
Any suggestions to have them eat from their own bowls?

 

[Pixiebeak]

Nope, all mine see grass is greener in somebody else cage

Guess you could only offer his seeds in his cage at evening lock up , to keep your others eating pellets and maybe he will come around to those as well

 

[Zara]

Try getting some pellets and spread them on a plate/tray. Place it out for the budgies to eat on, be sure the plate is big enough for everyone to gather around without squabbles, and allow them to eat together. This is how I get one bird that won't eat a certain veg to eat it. Shut off access to all food for 20 mins or so beforehand so the pellet eaters will eat something for the other to see.

 

[GreenThing]

I think it's okay to be stricter about this (with caution)! If the only thing that is on offer is pellets first thing in the morning, and the seed-addict budgie sees all the other budgies eating pellets, it is extremely likely that bird will begrudgingly get on board. That has worked with two of my three birds (the first I had to teach on my own, before he had a buddy). As Zara said, using the same plate could help. For a long time I only had one pellet bowl, and the competition over that bowl made the pellets even more high value! Obviously, you don't want this to lead to actual fighting.

If you observe the seed-addict and they just won't eat a single pellet, you can supplement their diet with a limited amount of seeds away from the other birds-- enough and often enough that you are confident they aren't in any danger of starving. I personally would make this a limited amount of seed-- unless you have a big aviary with lots of birds competing over multiple food sources, I don't think domestic budgies ever need free access to limitless seed. Budgies are smart birds, and @Ripshod gave me the best advice on this-- if they are eating pellets at all (not just playing with them), that means they KNOW pellets are food, and you can offer pellets only with confidence. It's when they don't recognize them as food that you get into dangerous diet conversions and potential starvation.

If you give budgies a choice, most will always choose seeds.