“It’s not as simple as you’d think.
First thing to understand is that parrots are creatures of habit.
They’ve been habituated to eat seed. That’s what they know. So it’s really important when you start the conversion process to not change too many things at once. So when you do a conversion process, always, always use the container that they’re used to having their seed in. The one that’s in their cage, use that. Secondly, don’t put that container in a new position. Always put it in exactly the same spot that they’re used to eating their food from. So if it’s in a cage, hang it exactly where it was hung. If it’s in an aviary, then the bowl goes, the feed bowl goes exactly where it used to be. Don’t change it.
Step two. The bird will not know what a pellet is.
Hasn’t seen it. hasn’t tasted it. hasn’t smelled it. So you need to introduce him to all those senses by attracting him with something he does know. And in this instance, it’s the seed. So relatively simple process, but this is how to go about it:
In this example we use NutriBlend, a common parrot pellet. What we would do is put a small amount of NutriBlend in his bowl. Take the normal seed that the parrot would eat. Now if you were a white cockatoo sitting in a cage, it’s probably been sunflower seed, which you really shouldn’t have been on for the last 40 years. So we’re going to convert him to a much better diet. So put into the bowl roughly the same amount of seed. Doesn’t need to be a lot, just enough. Then hot water, a little bit of hot water. So now add a little bit of hot water to the mix. What you’re trying to do here is just soften the pellets enough so that they become sticky.
Okay? They become sticky. So mix it around, let the pellets get a chance to absorb the water. I’ve probably put a tiny bit too much water in there so we’ll add a little more pellet. Let it get a little bit sticky. Now what we do is just simply press that mat down into the bottom of the container. I’ll just move that so you can see. I’ve just pushed it into the bottom of the container.
Why have I done that? Well, I want to make a cake. I want to make a cake, a gooey cake out of the pellets with the seed. I now put that container exactly where it would normally hang in the cage. What happens now is the bird will walk along the perch to his normal container in its normal position and he’ll look over the edge and go, hang on, that’s not what is normally in there. And you can see their little brains doing this. That’s not normal. But hang on, I can also see my seed in there. I know that’s my seed because I eat it every day. Huh. And he’ll walk away. And then he’ll come back a bit later and do the same thing again. Eventually, hunger gets the better of him and he’ll reach over and he’ll start to try and pick up one of his normal seeds. In the process of doing that, he gets the smell and the taste and the sight of the pellets. So we’re habituating him to the pellets by using his current seed mix. So that’s day one. That’s what you do.
Day two, you throw that out. Remember this is wetted now so we can’t leave it in the bowl for long periods. So it gets thrown out, bowl gets washed, repeat process.
Day two. Day three. Do the same thing. Day four, what we do now is we halve the amount of seed that we had. Okay, so now I’m three quarters pellet, one quarter seed. Do the same process though. We do that for another three days. Another three days, so now we’re up to day six. By about day seven, day eight, you should note that the bird’s starting to eat the pellets. The moment you see that he’s picking up a pellet and eating it, then you can do away with the seed. Then you can do away with the seed.
Now what you will find is that different parrots will convert differently.
So for instance, my comment about an older… Cockatoo, if it’s a 60-year-old cockatoo that is boot eating sunflowers for 60 years, do not expect it to convert to pellets in three days. It’s not going to happen. That process will be extended. If it’s a younger bird, so six-month-old cockatiel for instance, just pick a bird, you should convert that in two days. Those habits haven’t been set in his brain as well.
There are very few parrots that you can’t convert, but there are some that are difficult to convert. So if it takes longer than my suggested times, well, so be it. However, I think you’ll find if you follow this fairly simple procedure, it’ll work. I am not a fan, absolutely not a fan. of simply taking the new bag of pellets, putting it in a bowl and telling the bird to eat it. It doesn’t make sense if you’re a parrot. So go through that process and I think you’ll be right with it.”
