Weight Health

[CGrillo]

In my last thread in spoke about how luke was back to a healthy weight after his antibiotics caused him to not eat. Luke now seems to be making up for all the food he hasn’t eaten on his meds and seems to be stuck at 1.5 oz When they should weigh around 1.1-1.4 oz. He doesn’t seem to get much exercise and prefers when I carry him everywhere instead of flying. Is there something that can help keep him in that healthy weight range?

He eats mostly seeds, he eats a small amount of pellets (which we are working on) and he gets veggies probably every other day.

Thanks guys

 

[Bookwyrm]

Budgies are so stubborn...
I'd say that if he wants you to take him somewhere, just ignore him. He's perfectly capable of moving around himself.
If you have a playstand, I'd recommend making it as fun as possible, and placing it on the other side of the room, leaving the top of his cage empty. (My budgie plays more on his stand when it's in front of a window). That way he'll have to fly back and forth between the two.
You could also work on recall, keeping treats to a bare minimum.
Hope this helps!
Also, when referencing the weight of birds, most people do so in grams. Just a side note.
He's adorable, by the way.

 

[Ripshod]

Great reply @Bookwyrm.
As you say he eats some pellets and veges you could consider restricting his seed to just the last hour at night. He knows the pellets are edible so there shouldn't be a problem.

 

[CGrillo]

Budgies are so stubborn...
I'd say that if he wants you to take him somewhere, just ignore him. He's perfectly capable of moving around himself.
If you have a playstand, I'd recommend making it as fun as possible, and placing it on the other side of the room, leaving the top of his cage empty. (My budgie plays more on his stand when it's in front of a window). That way he'll have to fly back and forth between the two.
You could also work on recall, keeping treats to a bare minimum.
Hope this helps!
Also, when referencing the weight of birds, most people do so in grams. Just a side note.
He's adorable, by the way.

Thanks guys! I need to purchase a play stand I plan on getting one. I just have a perch on my desk at the moment he’s still shy about playing with toys outside of the cage. I forgot to mention his scale said 1.5oz / 44.5 grams (forgot to add the grams in there

 

[CGrillo]

Great reply @Bookwyrm.
As you say he eats some pellets and veges you could consider restricting his seed to just the last hour at night. He knows the pellets are edible so there shouldn't be a problem.

He only seems to eat a few pellets in a sitting. But I could try!

 

[Kassiani]

Yeah, my sweet boys were a wee on the portly side earlier this year

Luckily, we have been doing more flying for recall training and they are also mostly eating, pellets, and about 30% seed.

Budgies are stubborn and feisty little overlords! Lol! Just keep trying...and maybe offer limousine service a bit less frequently?

 

[CGrillo]

Yeah, my sweet boys were a wee on the portly side earlier this year

Luckily, we have been doing more flying for recall training and they are also mostly eating, pellets, and about 30% seed.

Budgies are stubborn and feisty little overlords! Lol! Just keep trying...and maybe offer limousine service a bit less frequently?

I just got him to fly to his cage himself ~ after having him stomp around on my laptop keys trying to get me to taxi him

 

[Bookwyrm]

The keyboard is a very inconvenient perching place...
I'm doing NaNoWriMo, and so I'm spending around an hour writing every day. I often have to do so around the fluffy little body of Kaladin as he tries to eat the letters as they appear on the screen.
On top of the computer would be much better.
But they just want to make things as difficult as possible.
Good thing they're cute.

 

[Miss_sj]

I have some experience with this as my budgies were both obese and have lost a significant amount of weight under my vets guidance.

Budgies are incredibly stubborn.

My budgies love riding and snuggles which limits their flight time as they want to spend lots of time hanging out on shoulders. I have turned this into a game, and will go to the opposite side of the room and hold my hand out like a perch. They are learning to fly back and forth and this is helping increase their flying time. You could try this with a toy.

The ONLY way I have got mine to eat a decent amount of pellets (I'm ashamed to say) is bt hand feeding them. I don't mean I put some pellets in my hand and they eat from it....i physically place each pellet into their beak for them. One.pellet.at.a.time

I don't know if I reccomend the above...my budgies LOVE it and I know they get their reccomended amount of pellets.....but its a bit nuts and my vet doesn't know if she thinks its hilarious or if I'm just plain nuts. I will say, I think the shift to pellets is what helped the most with weight loss