# Suggestions for Treats



## ladybirdkaity (Jan 1, 2015)

Hello,
Indie refuses to eat anything but seeds. I know I have to convert him to pellets eventually, but right now I'm focused on training him. I feel like it will be hard to get him used to me/to perform tasks if I don't have any positive reinforcement to offer him. I have tried millet and little seed balls but he won't touch either of them. I placed it in his food dish to see if he would try it without training and he doesn't touch anything that isn't a seed:lutino:. 
Suggestions? :tiel4:
~ Kate


----------



## vampiric_conure (Jul 8, 2012)

Allo ALlo! I find my guys love cheereos and anything that can be strung on a shoelace and destroyed. Might not get eaten, but they do have a lot of fun with it. You might also want to try Cous Cous. It looks a lot like seeds and you can cook baby food right into it (Therefore hiding the fact that there's no actual seeds in the cous cous! LOL!).

I don't know if you've tried nutriberries. A lot of people have had luck with them.


----------



## Charlotte (Jun 4, 2014)

Is Indie tame? You might get results by letting you eat something (ie a cheerio) and then offering to share once he gets interested! I find Murray wants whatever I've got, even if it's an orange juice spinach smoothie, which she hates


----------



## dianne (Nov 27, 2013)

I use sunflower seeds.


----------



## TamaMoo (Jan 12, 2014)

I also use sunflower seeds, or Zupreem fruity blend pellets. The bright color and fruity flavor make him think they are an awesome treat.


----------



## steveshanks (Aug 10, 2014)

Pumpkin seeds, Sunflower seeds, Rice crispies and millet work for mine......Steve


----------



## Nimra (Aug 4, 2014)

I feed mine seeds and sunflower seeds. Some birds don't like millet spray. You can feed yours a fruit or a vegetable. I saw a video on you tube and the person training his bird was giving him banana slices.


----------



## Colorguarder08 (Sep 13, 2014)

As far as treats go Riley gets Nutriberries, popcorn (air popped and nothing added), whole wheat toast and corn bread.


----------



## steveshanks (Aug 10, 2014)

Oh yes i forgot about toast, my boy loves toast ;o)


----------



## estypest (Jul 31, 2014)

I'm trying to get Maxi to eat some pellets with her seeds (harrisons super fine ones so shouldn't be too daunting!) don't think she's too impressed but she LOVES nutriberries so that's something. She took to them so quickly as well, whereas other things I try with her get a resounding nope. (Though she loves toast and bread!).


----------



## mutt (Jan 20, 2015)

i will post here so that i can track the thread to note down some ideas.
i am happy you can use sunflower seeds, i have many of those, i feed the local bird sunflower seed.


----------



## ladybirdkaity (Jan 1, 2015)

Wow, you all have very beautiful pets, but I want to say that I haven't seen one like Maxi before!

Anyway, Indie isn't interested in any of those suggestions, which I find really weird. I have bought so much food for him recently. He is not tame. I just adopted him a few weeks ago...


----------



## sunnysmom (Sep 23, 2011)

Opinions differ on the best diet for tiels, but I'm not a believer in total pellet conversion. I believe tiels still needs seed in their diets and that all pellets can be too hard on their kidneys. I actually shoot for about 50% seeds, 15% pellets and the rest vegetables, etc. As was mentioned, sunflower seeds are good for training and cheerios. One thing to watch for though is regular cheerios are high in iron, which too much iron is actually bad for tiels. I use an organic- cheerio type cereal which only has about 4% iron compared to real cheerios which I think are about 45%


----------



## steveshanks (Aug 10, 2014)

2 weeks is very early days ).....Steve


----------



## baileysowner516 (Feb 21, 2015)

Bailey loves banana granola cereal. Usually I barely get to eat any when I have a bowl because he takes over!


----------



## CloudySkies (Jul 11, 2014)

I think if I were in your shoes, I'd slowly start introducing pellets in a daily mix of seeds and pellets, then plan when you'd like to work on taming and take away his food a couple of hours beforehand so he's a little hungry. Then just use the seed mix he already loves as the treat.

As for introducing pellets, the way I did it with my budgies was to make birdy bread with a lot of pellets in the batter and then I'd also grind up pellets into a chunky powder and mix that up with crumbled birdy bread and their beloved seed mix and some regular pellets. It got them used to the taste and texture of the pellets slowly and now they will begrudingly eat them because I try to only feed them as much as they will eat in a day and I give them a mix of 50/50 seed/pellet ratio now.

My tiel was no problem, as he came to me already eating pellets, so I have had it very easy with him diet wise.

Also, maybe you can introduce him to the awesomeness that is millet by putting a small portion of spray in his cage every day? Maybe then he'll get hooked and then you can use that as a treat. Maybe he just doesn't know that millet = YUMMY YUMMY GOODNESS yet. 

I hope he likes the sunflower seeds, that's a good one! The only thing that makes it hard for training purposes is that it takes them time to crack the seed open and dig it all out and you're standing there waiting for them to be done with the whole operation before you can move on to your next training exercise. Millet is easy because you can offer him a quick nibble or two and then immediately move on to your next training exercise.


----------



## karmagami (Dec 5, 2014)

All of the mentioned stuff. But also I found that grinding pellets in my coffee grinder and mixing them with seed worked okay in the introductory days. Norm couldn't be bothered to separate them. Although when I tried the same trick with broccoli, he worked harder to get rid of the broccoli (hey, so would I)...


----------

