Hiram and more grey hairs...

[marian]

ok I love the big green bird aka Hiram with all my heart but he drives me nuts sometimes!I'm still working on him taking pellets in his bowl..he refuses to eat them.I've put them in water and apple juice..even peanut butter.He will taste them and just drop them.SO for the last month heres what i have been doing.I use them in the birdy bread recipe.I put alot through the food processor and grind the pellets finely.So its almost the same consistency as the flour.I use the corn flour and then the ground pellets as a mix..added alot of greens, sweet potatoe, broccoli, cauliflower,and frozen mixed veggies..oh and 3 eggs with shell and applesauce for flavor.i also add cayenne peppper to the mix.Then mornings i give him this.Most mornings he likes it warm and this morning he wanted it cool.Is he getting enough if hes only eating this mix..I mean as far a pellets?He also gets veggies,fruits and other things cut up during the day.I also started giving him a piece of avi cake or nutri berrie for a treat at night...with seeds.I just want to do whats right for him..but he is so picky when it comes to his food.I was thinking maybe i should try a smaller pellet?I'm using nupreem natural now and trying Harrisons in a few and just leaving it in his bowl.I'll let you know on the new brand.

 

[Archiesmom]

Hmm...I would think that if you are getting him to eat the ground up pellets, that's a good start anyway. I would play around with the brands and such and see what you can come up with. I got Ella to eat more pellets by making her forage for them. I treated them as though they were a special treat, and got her excited about them that way. At least then she was willing to try them instead of just toss them out of her food dish.

 

[Thugluvgrl187]

Squeeky gets mix of Harrisons, Roudybush, and Zupreem natural pellets.

 

[marian]

I'll keep trying and i will try the foraging thing too.

 

[Anne & Gang]

as long as he is getting all those other good foods, pellets are not necessary

 

[Bahama's Momma]

Sure hope Hiram likes the Harrisons!

Bahama was the same way and it drove his foster mom nuts too. She had to 1) put the harrisons in a zip lock bag and break them up a little, 2) take a tiny (just enough to smear a little on) bit of peanut butter and mix it up and heat it up a few seconds in the microwave and stir it up and then Mr Fussy would eat them. He was underweight when he first came to her because he was a stray who had flown into someone's garage that so he had not been eating well (makes you wonder why he was such a fussy zon when he was so hungry ). He would even go on hunger strikes when she tried to change things up and get him to eat them whole and add other pellets in (zupreem plain). I wanted him off the peanut butter because by the time he came to live with me he had gain quite a lot of weight back. At first he just stared at his bowl like "what's this supposed to be????" and he started to not eat. I went back to breaking them up just without the peanut butter this time and he came around. When Chewie joined us he just started gobbling down the Harrisons's whole and when Bahama saw him holding the whole pellet muching away and he was getting the broken up ones he decided he wanted to be a big boy and eat them whole (LOL!) Never had any problems since

 

[Danita]

Have you tried the Harrisons lifetime mash? It is a fine powder, you can mix it with your bird bread. I switched mine to harrisons with the mash. I boil water add it to the mash with mashed up banana, the mix would be thick soupy. I spoon fed it to them when it cooled a bit, warm. It reminds them of being babies. Good luck, let us know how it goes

 

[marian]

He wont even taste the Harrison'sThanks for all the ideas.I'll try those mash and breaking them up ideas...and add a few mroe grey hairs...

 

[Kolkri]

as long as he is getting all those other good foods, pellets are not necessary

I agree. I don't feed pellets anymore.

 

[Bahama's Momma]

How long have you been offering the pellets to him? Do you put a lot in his bowl? Sometimes we think a bird is not eating them but they do when we don't notice and he may not eat a lot but if he getting some in him that's a good thing.