how to feed my budgies?

[Deleted]

I am currently feeding my budgies by putting a lot of food in their food bowl to last them a long time, like they do in the pet shops. Is this a good way to feed my budgies as I have heard that I have to clean my budgies food bowls daily? I am only feeding my birds seeds, I want to know how to get them to eat veggies and fruits. Also which pellets are best to get that ship to Peninsular Malaysia?

[mona]

I prefer having shallow food bowls, instead of deep ones, for two reasons. We end up filling more than required and they have to go deep inside to get the food.

Seeds and pellets in bulk wouldn't be a good idea. They soil it sometimes when they decide to poop inside, when singing on the food bowl.. seed husks also cause discomfort. Plus if it's a plastic seed bowl, it might help the bacterial growth even if you wash it multiple times. Once you know how much the birdie eats, you can put a bit more than that. I have to move the seed bowl away from their sight for them to be able to eat veggies fresh food etc. I have a seed bowl which I measure and put the seeds everyday. Remove the seed husks twice a day and refill it again in the night. It is also important to keep the bowl clean. Even if the food bowl contains just seeds, it's nice to swap it with another food bowl and give the old one a good wash.

Mine eat seeds in the morning which i leave their overnight in the cage, followed by soft food (moong beans/brown chickpea mash/sweet potato and learning to eat more), followed by fresh grass or plants (home grown ones), sometimes followed with veggie chop (if I can) and then seeds again before their bedtime (planning to replace the seeds with germinated seeds - just need to get rinsing and vinegar spraying all good there). All these food bowls are washed with soap everytime with a new meal. I have a couple of stainless steel bowls with me which I swap when I am lazy.

I don't provide them fruits due to the sugar content and fat. Mine never showed any interest and I didn't push them too.

I don't feed them pellets so probably someone else might be able to help.

[mona]

Most of the birdies are good with eating green leafy veggies. You might wanna try different ways they would like it.. try hanging the leafy greens in the cage..they might eat/play/shred it.. some might like it finely chopped..some might like bigger pieces.. sometimes they don't identify those things as food.

Diet conversion needs a lot of patience. It's like converting them from a junk food diet to salads! Mine took around 5 months and are cranky now too sometimes. I started with half cooked moong beans, fenugreek, quinoa (always to be given cooked, never raw, due to a natural antipest coating) and couple other non oily seeds.. they weren't interested, so I started moving out the seed bowl and mix seeds in the fresh food ..initially there were more seeds and less fresh food and gradually i decreased the seeds on that.. now they don't need seeds to dig into fresh food. I only repeat this process now when I want them to try out something new. They loved moong beans, so I also started using moong beans in various other things they could try.

I got inspired to grow wheatgrass at home from this forum. And ended up growing much more..various types of millets, moong beans, chickpea, coriander, fenugreek, mustard, rye, etc.. all the seeds they eat are safe as plants too.. even their seed mix can be sprouted and added to soil to grow. They have taken to all homegrown plants very easily.

[Deleted]

Bowl depth sometimes depends on whether or not they can reach the bottom. As long as they can physically reach, and especially if they can get into the bowl, you can put in several days worth of food and leave it, providing the food doesn't get soiled, and they then have to work for their food more as they eat, foraging through the husks.

Of course, if your birds are likely to overeat then it's often better to put in a daily amount. If you have multiple budgies it can still be hard to know who is eating what quantity, but it can be helpful to limit the total amount.
Also allows you to wash dishes regularly.

[ffiscool]

I would blow any husks away and as above, make sure no poop in there. Also change their water daily.

Also as above, depends on depth of food bowl and possibility of them overeating.