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Pellets

oliviikate

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Liv
Hi everyone!

Since bringing home my canaries a few weeks ago, I've been feeding them the seed mix they'd been eating where I adopted them from. I didn't want to introduce too many new things at once. However, about a week ago I started mixing canary pellets in with their food. They haven't even tried it, lol.

On the bright side I've been giving them fruits and veggies every day to help keep their diet more healthy! They go NUTS for broccoli, I've been using it to try and help them learn they're allowed to fly outside the cage, too.

Does anyone have any advice for helping the merge to the pellet diet a little easier? Am I just not being patient enough?
 

Mizzely

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Took me several weeks to get my bird to eat pellets and almost 2 years to get him to eat veggies :lol:

This may help:

 

oliviikate

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Took me several weeks to get my bird to eat pellets and almost 2 years to get him to eat veggies :lol:

This may help:

Wow! That article was very helpful! I loved the pellet paste idea, I might have to give it a try one of these days! Thank you so much!
 

AndyG

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I would take the seed away for two hours and leave the pellets. About two hours on and two hours off. They were eating pellets within a week.

only thing is that they refuse to eat the red pellets. So weird.
 

Destiny

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only thing is that they refuse to eat the red pellets. So weird.
I am one of those people who can't eat red cake frosting. It tastes really gross to me. Even some pink frostings are too bitter. When I was younger, I always wondered why they used a dye that affected the flavor so much and was careful to avoid asking for rainbow colored birthday cakes. Turns out that many people are unable to taste this bitter flavor, but others can. It is genetic - some people do not register it at all. And it is only present in one type of common food dye, so some red flavored frosting tastes okay to me. I still avoid all red frosting, just to be safe.

It turns out that some birds are able taste the same bitter flavor in red dye, which is why you will often hear about parrots that only avoid the red pellets.

Please don't try to try to force them to eat the red ones. Red dye tastes terrible! If the waste bothers you, perhaps try switching to a dye-free pellet.
 
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Mizzely

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Sometimes they just avoid random colors. Ripley used to avoid the red ones, then he avoided yellow, now he avoids the green ones instead :lol:
 

AndyG

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I am one of those people who can't eat red cake frosting. It tastes really gross to me. Even some pink frostings are too bitter. When I was younger, I always wondered why they used a dye that affected the flavor so much and was careful to avoid asking for rainbow colored birthday cakes. Turns out that many people are unable to taste this bitter flavor, but others can. It is genetic - some people do not register it at all. And it is only present in one type of common food dye, so some red flavored frosting tastes okay to me. I still avoid all red frosting, just to be safe.

It turns out that some birds are able taste the same bitter flavor in red dye, which is why you will often hear about parrots that only avoid the red pellets.

Please don't try to try to force them to eat the red ones. Red dye tastes terrible! If the waste bothers you, perhaps try switching to a dye-free pellet.
No way!!!!! Ha! I’m floored. Thanks for the info

I don’t force them at all. I’m just happy they eat pellets period.
 

oliviikate

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Michigan
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Liv
I am one of those people who can't eat red cake frosting. It tastes really gross to me. Even some pink frostings are too bitter. When I was younger, I always wondered why they used a dye that affected the flavor so much and was careful to avoid asking for rainbow colored birthday cakes. Turns out that many people are unable to taste this bitter flavor, but others can. It is genetic - some people do not register it at all. And it is only present in one type of common food dye, so some red flavored frosting tastes okay to me. I still avoid all red frosting, just to be safe.

It turns out that some birds are able taste the same bitter flavor in red dye, which is why you will often hear about parrots that only avoid the red pellets.

Please don't try to try to force them to eat the red ones. Red dye tastes terrible! If the waste bothers you, perhaps try switching to a dye-free pellet.
Wow! That's fascinating. Luckily the pellets I'm using don't have any dyes in them - they're just brown, lol. So there shouldn't be any problems with colors. I think they just don't realize its food.
 
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