My Parakeet Only eats Seeds / Avoids Healthy Choices

Parakeets are just like picky toddlers - they get used to eating whatever they are fed. Keets will demand this "known food" daily, even if other interesting (and more nutritious!) things are out there in the world. You are the owner and know better. However, you need to take this diet improvement slowly and patiently.

You definitely don't want your parakeet to starve to death because he or she is afraid of the new foods you try to provide! Never just remove all old, known food and put new food in the cage hoping the keet will eat it. Keets are often very afraid of new things. Your keet might not even realize this new stuff is "food" and will starve to death rather than risk poisoning herself.

The trick in expanding your keet's diet is to appeal to the innate curiosity of a parakeet. Parakeets are INCREDIBLY smart and can learn the names of things, so they certainly understand when something is yummy. If you eat something and make yummy noises, they will want to eat it too. Keets are also very much of a "MINE! MINE! MINE!" mentality and if they see you have something that looks like fun, they want to have some too.

Parakeets also love to gnaw, so anything that looks fun and involves gnawing on something appeals to them. You just have to get them over their natural nervousness of strange things.

Here are my step by step instructions on getting your keet to eat veggies and other healthy items.

Training your Parakeet to Eat Vegetables

Index of Healthy Food and Water for Parakeets