Revisiting seeds and pellets topic....
I've heard that some birds will flat out refuse to eat pellets if seeds are provided with them and will sooner starve themselves than eat the pellets if they think seed is coming - I don't want my bird to starve herself (and she's very stubborn at times) but I also heard that if a budgie wasn't weaned onto pellets, they'll never take the 'proper' kind and the best you can get is the colorful ones. I'm not sure how valid this may be, or if the person who told me this has just only experienced this and not a budgie that will transition to pellets and seeds and eat both.
I actually converted a male budgie over to eating pellets by providing pellets AND seeds at the same time! More specifically, I bought a small container of
Lafeber's Finch Pellets and placed this in a small, shallow dish. (I think the 'dish' was actually the lid to a container?) I then lightly sprinkled the pellets with millet of the "same" color. (that red/brown millet) Once he was done eating the millet, he kind of continued eating the pellets. He had a mate, so when I put the two together in a cage again, his mate watched him eating pellets and she started eating them, too! Once they were eating pellets, it was then easy to switch them to a different pellet.
Faye, a normal hen in my flock has been eating pellets the day she joined the tiel flock! You would have thought she has always eaten them! I don't know how old she is, but I suspect she's in her teens or twenties. What little I know, her first(?) home gave her away at a yard sale, her second home had her for who knows how many years before giving her to another home, and they had her for a few years before she came to me. Faye came to me in December of 2007 so nearly 8 years, and the previous people probably had her for 5+ years so I know she's an older bird. Her previous home fed her cheap Wally World seed, then wild bird food. I'm pretty sure the home before her also fed cheap Wally World seed or similar... and it wouldn't surprise me if her first home also fed her just seeds! So if you can imagine, she's probably been on a seed only diet for who knows how many years before she came to me! At the time, I was providing seeds and pellets to my flock, in separate dishes, so they could choose what they wanted to eat, and fresh foods in a third dish. (most of my birds were living cage-free then, so I had a feeding station set up for them)
After giving Faye some time to settle into my home in her own cage while providing a basic seed diet (because she's had a crappy diet for years, I didn't want to cause stress by completely revamping her diet after she came to me), I let her out to join the flock, and the very first dish she went to? It was pellets! And she ate them as if she's always eaten them! (and acted like she was starving! she chowed down on those pellets!) No need to convert. I was shocked! And waited for her to stop eating pellets, but she kept going!
Here's a video shortly after I got her. I had hand fed 5 adult, flighted budgies by hand (none tame, but was able to get all 5 budgies to fly to my hand for food without fear), then started feeding a female cockatiel by hand (she watched me feed the budgies and wanted the same.... took me 2 weeks to figure out what she wanted!), and Faye was watching the other cockatiel eating from my hand, so she wanted to do the same, too! (if you look at the video, you can see there is food behind her, so she doesn't *have* to eat from my hand, but she is choosing to!)
And in the next video, I'm feeding her pellets by hand! (video taken several years after the first one)
So no, birds will not starve themselves *once* you convert them to eating a healthier diet! They'll only starve themselves if the food you provide them is not recognized as food! Imagine someone putting crickets, snails and tarantulas in front of you to eat? These things are edible, but would you be willing to eat them right off the bat, or would you rather starve yourself and wait for something that you *do* recognize as food? Same idea with birds! If they aren't accustomed to something being food, they're more likely to avoid it! But if you mix something new with something old, then it might not be so bad! (I did come across a health food bar made with cricket meal..... I don't know if I could bring myself to eat it.... but I'd probably more likely eat that than I would some freshly cooked crickets!)
The majority of my birds have come to me eating seeds as their main diet, and all have eaten pellets! Including Sylphie, a wild caught african ringneck! I don't know how old she was when captured, but I can tell you for a fact that pellets don't grow on trees in the wild!
Charlie came to me eating Zupreem Fruitblend, and he's been switched to Zupreem Natural, Roudybush, Harrison's and now Pretty Bird. It wouldn't surprise me if he ate a seed based diet for the first 11 years of his life! Jayde came to me eating Lafeber's Nutriberries (which have about 26% pellets in them) and I was told she doesn't eat pellets. She was 3 years old when she came to me and has been eating pellets since day one of being here! (she's 5 now!
)
Pistachio was at least 7 years old when he came to me (probably older, he's been with me for 10 years, so wouldn't be surprised if he's in his twenties!) eating a seed diet. I have no clue on how old Tomi Girl is (suspected teens or twenties, too!), but she was probably fed a seed diet in her first home, was fed seeds (*IF* she was fed at all....) in the dungeon she lived in next prior to coming to me. The bourke parakeet was at least 5-7 years old and was on a seed diet but now she's on a pellet diet (no seeds allowed except sprouts - due to her failing health.... she's 18-20 now....).
I could keep going on and on! Short and simple, the majority of my birds are rehomes of various ages (mostly older birds) that have come to me on very poor diets (the conures got lucky being in great foster homes!), and with the exception of Charlie who can be picky about his fresh foods, all of them know how to eat a varied diet! Seeds, pellets, fruits, vegetables, grains, legumes, sprouts..... Sprouts are actually a favorite here, and it's the best way to get them all to shut up in the mornings!
The main trick is is out-smarting the bird long enough to actually convert them.
One of the best ways, IMO, to get birds eating pellets is to grind the pellets into a dust (you need dye-free pellets for this!), then mixing about 50/50 with seeds, then adding enough water to make a thick paste. You can then roll these up or make little cakes and feed "as is", or drying them out in the oven for a little bit and then feeding. Heck, if you want, mix in some dried pellets, too! As the bird eats through the pellet paste looking for seeds, they are inevitably tasting the pellets, too! And as they get accustomed to the taste and flavor of these "treats", they'll learn to enjoy eating pellets, too!
If you check out the conversion thread that I linked to, I show, with images, exactly what I did, too! So even if you can get your bird to eat colored pellets doesn't mean that you can't convert them to a dye-free pellet! You just got to be creative!
So of course, for my piece of mind, in went the grate!