- Joined
- 7/25/18
- Messages
- 151
I am starting to run out of ideas for coaxing my Pionus Zephyr to eat her veggies!!! She eats Roudybush maintenance pellets as her base diet, which she absolutely loves. If there are any pellets available to her, she will not even look at a vegetable or fruit, and often even refuses seed in favor of her pellets. As far as Zephyr is concerned, pellets are The Way and The Life. The ONLY fresh food she will eat are sprouted lentils - but those are high in protein, so I can't feed them regularly.
If I don't offer her pellets in the morning, she will eventually resort to eating some vegetables - she eats sugar snap peas and apples, and occasionally a carrot or mango or banana or butternut squash. She would die before touching a leafy green. Her dignity cannot endure eating a pepper. She ate a jalapeno once, and never again. Most of her veggies she has tried - she's nibbled a kale stem, broccoli, peppers etc., so I don't think it's that she doesn't realize they're food. She seems to genuinely not like them.
Any advice?? I've tried offering veggies chopped small, whole, in bird bread, mixed in with her pellets, tried offering them from my own plate. Nada. I've tried putting them in her bowls (obviously), putting them in foraging toys, hanging them from skewers. The only success I've had is with refusing her pellets until she gets so hungry she'll eat her veggies, but I'm worried that she won't be getting enough nutrition.
Help me, Avian Avenue! Any advice welcome!
If I don't offer her pellets in the morning, she will eventually resort to eating some vegetables - she eats sugar snap peas and apples, and occasionally a carrot or mango or banana or butternut squash. She would die before touching a leafy green. Her dignity cannot endure eating a pepper. She ate a jalapeno once, and never again. Most of her veggies she has tried - she's nibbled a kale stem, broccoli, peppers etc., so I don't think it's that she doesn't realize they're food. She seems to genuinely not like them.
Any advice?? I've tried offering veggies chopped small, whole, in bird bread, mixed in with her pellets, tried offering them from my own plate. Nada. I've tried putting them in her bowls (obviously), putting them in foraging toys, hanging them from skewers. The only success I've had is with refusing her pellets until she gets so hungry she'll eat her veggies, but I'm worried that she won't be getting enough nutrition.
Help me, Avian Avenue! Any advice welcome!