Budgie breakthrough and a question

[Momof3litt]

So this week my budgies finally realized that pellets are food and they started eating their pellets (Harrison's) regularly - yay!

They came to me as rescues on an all-seed diet, so I'm thrilled that they have converted. However, they have also been watching my green cheeked conure eat very carefully. On the one hand, this has been great, since it's part of why they started trying to eat pellets. On the other hand, even though they have the same food in his cage, they will suddenly only eat his food, in his cage!

The conure is a baby (14 weeks) and he is still learning that his cage is where his food is, so I am only feeding everybody in cages right now (except for training treats). I wouldn't want a budgie to get cornered in the conure cage and get bitten for being an "intruder". They all spend the day flying freely, so the cage doors all stay open. They also use identical dishes.

Any ideas to get the budgies out of the conure cage and back into their own food?

Gratuitous budgie photo:

 

[Tikitiel]

Try feeding the budgies in another room or whenever they get in the conures cage take a way the food bowl (with the conure if its eating) they will learn that if they get in you will just take it out or if your birds are target trained put the target stick on/in thier cage to come over for a treat whenever they stay at thier food reward them woth a couple of millits tbh if i was u i wouldnt mind that i mean they are birds except if the conure is attacking be careful about that vonure bites can kill budgies you can try to put an extra food bowl for the conure or close the conures cage when he is eating if he doesnt like that close the budgies cage if they both dont like it just supervise them whenever one gets in the conures cage tell them to step up put them in thier cage and reward(sorry for my spelling im a fast typer)

 

[Zara]

I have a similar dilemma. I let my lovebirds fly together, and that´s ok, but intruding in someone elses cage is dangerous, and most of my birds are brazen enough to try.
Simple solution, close the cage doors once the birds are out.
You can offer larger bowls, like a large plate for the birds to share food on, and some multiples around the room.

 

[Momof3litt]

You can offer larger bowls, like a large plate for the birds to share food on, and some multiples around the room.

So I had been doing this, but was starting to get some food-related aggression from the conure, so stopped. He would stand in the middle of the dish and lunge at anyone (bird or human) who would come close. We're working on it, but it's a new issue. Developmental thing?? (he's just a baby) I don't know...

He doesn't try to protect any one dish, so I put out at least 3, but the budgies seem to think he always has the best stuff, so they will just sneak up behind him. I know full well how much he could hurt them, so they are never unsupervised, but the budgies seem to be going out of their way to push his buttons!

Seriously, these budgies! They came to me so shy and scared and they've had this huge boost of confidence, which is awesome, but they've become sneaky little buggers!

To keep everyone eating safely - maybe keeping the budgies' door open and closing the conures' door (when he's not around)?? He doesn't fly back to his cage to get food/water on his own, I'm working on teaching him. Not sure about putting out extra food, that seems it might increase the food-related conflict.