Let’s focus on food. Too often, birds come in from stores or breeders who have been feeding birds seeds for years and don’t understand the importance of pellets in a bird’s diet. Birds’ diets should be pellet-based. Pellets are nutritionally complete and balanced. They contain all the nutrients that a bird needs to live. Birds don’t have to have only pellets in their diet. Ideally, 60-70 % of their diet should be made up of pellets. The other third or so can be fresh fruits and vegetables, cooked pasta, little bits of cooked egg or cooked meat. Seeds and nuts should be treats. I use seeds and nuts as training tools, too. For example, if you’re trying to teach the bird to come out of his or her cage to do a trick, to step onto your hand, or to step off your hand, most birds like seeds and nuts, so I use these foods as training tools to teach these behaviors. But different birds have different food preferences. So, you’ll have to figure out what types of food motivates your bird for training.
