My Parakeet will Only Eat a Honey Treat Stick

User Question
First off I want to say that your hand training steps are starting off great for my girlfriend and I's new little family member. We bought our little Tweak about 4 days ago and already he/she does not mind our hand in the cage much. he/she even lets us rub his/her little tummy. This was not a hand fed bird mind you and I have been working really hard to train him and show him as much love as possible for a couple that both work 9am-7pm 5 days a week. So far we are on step 2 in the hand training section. He/She will step up onto the perch and off with almost complete ease.

The only issue I am really worried about, and maybe this is just me being nervous since i have never had a feathered friend before, he/she will only eat his/her treat stick. We initially got him/her the honey flavor treat stick and he/she won't even touch his/her food dish. It has been 4 days and he/she is about 1/4 to a 1/3 through the full treat stick. Also another thing I am unsure of is how old he/she is because when you look at the cere on his/her nose it is a light purple and tan around the nostrils and the stripes on his/her head were really never there. He/She does not have dark defined stripes on his/her little head. They are very very very light grey.

Anyways I dont want to keep you here reading all day (though I probably could since I am one to want to know as much as possible about anything new I get.). I just want to say in close out of every site I have found(I work in a call center so I spend about 9 hours a day online) Your site is the most informative. Thank you for all the info you have gathered here for us. You are truely a budgie lover.

Lisa's Answer
I have pages set up on having a parakeet eat healthy foods -

http://www.lisashea.com/petinfo/recipes/

Parakeets are much like toddlers. Honey sticks are much like sugary candy. It is sweet and full of fat. If you offer your parakeet honey sticks every day, that is all they will eat. You need to deliberately choose a better way to feed your parakeet, and take the time to train your keet that these new foods are "safe" and not poisonous. Read through the pages and you should get there!

On the age, well if there aren't dark, defined stripes, the bird isn't a baby. But that's OK, you can still train and have fun with it.

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