Comprehensive guide?

[round786]

Hi, I have 4 budgies. They are currently on a diet of maybe 50% pellets (Zupreem FruitBlend) and 50% sprouted seeds (I never feed them unsprouted seeds or millet). They have recently been putting on a lot of weight and are getting visibly chunky. The heaviest one is 37 grams. I want to put them on a diet of fruits and vegetables but the problem is that I rarely cook in my house and I don't really have fresh vegetables or fruits in my house. Is there some sort of comprehensive guide where they tell you how much of what fruit/vegetable you need to give to your budgie on a daily basis? I don't want to just give my budgies random vegetables and fruits and make them get insufficient vitamins and nutrients. 

[Hezz]

That going to be a tough ask if you never have fresh veg around to get them used to eating these. Not all budgies will eat every, or the same sorts of veg so a lot of experimentation is generally needed to get them started. Like anything else, variety is best and the bigger the variety the more likely you are to cover all their essential nutrients. They eat such a small amount of any one thing, and have their preferences. Maybe you can try increasing the variety of things you sprout, increase the sprouts component of their diet and have the odd piece of veg to entice them into eating this. The short answer is that there is no guide. if you are really concerned, perhaps a vet could be more help.

[Morgan]

Hey there round786! So first off, what is their normal weight? How much have they put on in what span of time? How often are they out to fly around and get exercise?

As far as feeding veggies and other fresh foods - no, there is no comprehensive guide, but I have been doing a lot of reading into this subject myself. Most budgies are deficient in a certain set of nutrients - most commonly vitamin A, but also C, D, E, and K - all of which are not found is most seeds, nuts, legumes, grains, etc. Also magnesium, as most soils are depleted due to monoculture farming practices. Your pellets will cover most of this, so you shouldn’t have to worry too much about making up all the missing nutrition through fresh foods from the start. Instead, try to just introduce a variety of fresh foods to get your budgies used to them, to begin with.

Vitamin A can be gotten directly from egg yolks - probably the best source, and also has vitamins E, B (pastured have more from the insects the birds eat), and K. Egg yolk is also very fatty though, so if that is a concern - good sources of beta carotene (which is then converted to vitamin A) are sweet potatoes and winter squash (boiled), followed by carrots and bell peppers. Bell peppers are also high in vitamin C. Also, fat doesn’t usually make budgies (or other birds or people) fat (which is why Harrison’s High Potency pellets are so high in fat, but used for sick birds with liver disease). Carbs, which convert to sugars, are usually the culprit instead. Seeds are high in fat, but also very high in carbs! Now of course, too much fat is still going to make anyone fat, but I just wanted to point that out in case of the egg yolks, because they are highly nutritious to boot.

Other important veggies to try are spinach - which I recently found out are safe to feed daily. It used to be thought that the oxalic acid in the spinach would bind to the calcium in the body, and prevent absorption of additional calcium. However, the oxalic acid in the spinach is about the same (or a little less) as the amount of calcium in the spinach - which bind in a 1:1 ratio. So the calcium in the spinach itself won’t be absorbed, but the other nutrients in the spinach will - and no calcium will be lost from other foods. So spinach is wonderful to feed, and usually goes over well. Carrot tops and anything else frilly like that, like parsley, cilantro, fresh fennel fronds if you have access, also go over well. Broccoli too, because they seem to like eating each of the individual tiny flowers that make up the broccoli floret.

I have gone into detail in what I do for my budgies, under the thread titled “Pellets” (it probably should have a more creative name) if you would like to read about that. You can probably skip the first two posts which are about getting budgies to eat pellets in the first place, for those who wish to feed pellets. Most people on this forum do not support a pellet-based diet, and I only feed about 25% pellets myself, but at the time I thought it useful information to share since many vets recommend them still.

Since you do not buy fresh foods for yourself, try buying just one thing at a time (I would start with spinach myself), and try offering it to your budgies in various ways to see if they will try it out. Once they will eat the first item presented, try another. And you might end up eating some yourself too!