Lorikeet homemade dry/wet mix

[Lorimadnes]

Despite common sense telling me otherwise, I impulse purchased a rainbow lorikeet. Not knowing anything about Lorikeets, I asked my breeder what he feeds it. He said he leaves the parrot mix (looks very cheap, lots of corn and sunflower seeds and very little fruit) there for it all day and he gives it a third of an apple a day. Didn't take long after getting home on my PC to realize that this diet isn't great. After a lot of searching, it turns out that there is only 1 brand of dry "complete food" for lorikeets available in my country. Looking at the ingredients, Sugar and Vegetable protein extracts are the first two ingredients and pollen isn't listed anywhere. I wasn't super keen on using it but hey, seemed like a way better option than that parrot mix.

Whipped up a batch for him and the first time, he wasn't keen on it but boy oh boy did he go crazy for it the second day. After giving it to him for 3 days, I realized it's out of date!!! (stupid of me, I know ). Of course, I stopped using it now but I feel so bad for him lol. He really loved that dry mix when turned into porridge. I'm trying to source some more food from abroad but living on an island, it's gonna take a while until I find someone willing to ship me some in Europe and get it shipped to me.

Is there anything I can whip up for him in the meantime? Some homemade dry/wet mix that is more appropriate for him than just blended fruit? I tried to give him strawberries and bananas but he doesn't even touch them hah. Seems like he's so used to eating only apples that he doesn't really want to try anything else. I'm hesitant to have him on a strictly fruit diet because I know that flowers and pollen make a very large part of their diet.

Also, one smaller question about pollen, is bee pollen from health shops good for them or does the pollen have to be specifically for birds?

EDIT:

Oh and yeah, I texted the breeder yesterday to ask him how old my bird was (He said the bird was hatched in February for anyone interested). We were talking for a bit and the first thing he said when I told him about the wet mix was "oh no, he's just going to make a mess with poo using that". Maybe it's just the honeymoon phase for me but I don't see their poop to be as disgusting as the little poop rolls other birds leave lol. The mess isn't fun but it's mostly like water anyway. Seems weird to me that you'd change your birds diet just so it's poops are more to your liking haha. Especially if it doesn't normally eat that stuff or digest it too well but I digress. If dry mix is this tough to source in my country, I can't bash on the guy too much I guess.

 

[Shezbug]

There might be some helpful information in this link… Lorikeet Diet - Teach Your Bird How to Eat Healthily.

I’ll see if I can find anything else from a source I feel I can trust.

 

[Shezbug]

I don’t think there’s a recipe in this link but there may be other diet information that helps. Feeding Lories and Lorikeets | VCA Animal Hospitals

 

[Lorimadnes]

Hello Shez. Thanks for the reply and the links! I actually did see that ensure recipe too but all the ensure branded stuff I found here seemed like post-workout crap that's already in bottles for humans to drink hah.

There are other recipes with ground rice, ground weetabix, glucose and fructose, etc. but they also had skim milk powder which from everything I've read, started ringing alarm bells cause everyone says they can't digest dairy and that you should avoid it. Then again, some of the people recommending that stuff say they are breeders in Australia. Color me confused