Budgie stopped eating pellets on his ownnd poop color is off

[skylerbird]

Hello, a few weeks ago I posted about my budgie Skyler having hurt his foot and having weird digestion.  We were luckily able to take him to the vet quickly, and we were given pain medicine for his foot which thank goodness cleared up, and the results of his gram stain was normal and we were told he was a good weight as well, about 35 grams. 

When he was feeling under the weather, he had stopped eating his pellets, didn't want to go near his food dish, and as a result we fed him mostly seeds and millet which helped him get some food in his system. Eventually after mixing seeds in with his pellets at his food dish, he was willing to go back and eat out of the food dish, but only to pick out the seeds. 

Now he's still addicted to seeds, and is extremely reluctant to eat pellets, very rarely eating them out of the seed dish, and instead searches all over for seeds, even getting into our stash of millet a couple of times.  The only way I have been able to get him to eat pellets is with a spoon and he will accept a few, but mostly just wants to knock all the pellets down.  I even bought him smaller sized pellets in hoping he'd like those more, and baked him birdy bread with pellets mixed in, but he doesn't like any of them.

I've tried giving him less and less seeds, and eventually gave him no seeds, and as a result sometimes he goes and eats some pellets on his own, but he's hardly eating any, and his poop color hasn't returned to its former brown color that it gets when he eats only pellets.   His digestion is quite slow as well, like it takes maybe 20-30 minutes before he poops, and the poop is a vibrant green color.  Sometimes it's a little watery as well, but most of the time it's a fully formed poop, just not the correct color and super slow to come out.   When he was eating only seeds while he was sick and until recently, his digestion was at a normal speed.

I'm worried that he's not eating enough, but I don't know how to get him back into eating pellets on his own.  I don't want him to go hungry, but I don't want to go back to giving him only seeds because that's not healthy for him.  Besides all this, he's still quite happy.  He has a lot of energy and sings and plays a lot. He also drinks on his own as well, and drinks plenty of water. 

If anyone has any suggestions for what I can do, I would really appreciate it. 

[Hezz]

Take it slowly; any change to a bird’s diet needs to be slow so don’t go trying to fix it in a hurry. Go back to a mix of seed and pellets and gradually lessen the mount of seed mixed in. Does he have any fresh food in his diet, fresh veg or sprouts?

Green poop is indicative of him not eating much/enough.

[skylerbird]

Sept 11, 2021 0:43:07 GMT Hezz said:

Take it slowly; any change to a bird’s diet needs to be slow so don’t go trying to fix it in a hurry. Go back to a mix of seed and pellets and gradually lessen the mount of seed mixed in. Does he have any fresh food in his diet, fresh veg or sprouts?

Green poop is indicative of him not eating much/enough.

Thank you very much for your reply.  Unfortunately he's extremely picky and the only non-seed and pellet foods he likes to eat are corn on the cob (more specifically when *I'm* eating corn - I can put corn on his cage and he's not interested unless I eat it too) and rice.  Other than that he doesn't eat much else.  I will do my best to adjust him back to pellets, more slowly now, and I really appreciate your advice!