Hi, my name is David and I have 2 budgies. I want to keep them healthy so i tryed a couple of times, feeding them an apple, bananas, and letuce, but they wont eat it. they only eat seeds and drink water. How do I convince them to start eating fruits and vegtables?
Well budgies are psittacines, and are primarily seed-eaters.
This is what the Merck Veterinary Manual says about them:
Smaller seed-eating psittacines (eg, cockatiel, budgerigar, lovebird) can be fed commercial seed mixtures (canary seed; red, yellow, and white millet; oat groats) along with chopped greens, bread, and fruit. There are also commercial diets (complete feeds) available in small sizes; these are more likely to provide well-balanced diets. Vitamin and mineral supplements can be added in the same manner as with the larger species. Unlike most psittacines, lories and lorikeets are primarily frugivorous. Various fortified fruit mixtures have been used successfully for these species. Cuttlebone, oyster shell, or a mineral block should be available free-choice to all psittacines. Daily food intake is usually ~10-15% of body wt for most species, with higher relative intakes seen in smaller birds.
Depending how old they are, it may take time for them to start eating anything new. It says chopped apples, etc so I am assuming that means pretty small. I would be very careful about feeding raw fruits to these birds because of the bacteria they can carry. I would ask your local pet store if they have a fruit supplement that is safe and accepted by parakeets.
They are more knowledgeable about budgies than I am!
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