Lisa Shea Forums Parakeets Keet Stories and Photos What is your food storage / feeding system?

How do you store the birds' food and how do you feed it to them, how often, etc? and WHAT do you feed them?

For me, I am in a seed to pellet transition. I have a mix of half zupreem fruit flavor pellets and LM animal farms premium parakeet diet...mixed together in an airtight pitcher...in the freezer. They get about a quarter cup max of that for the day. Then they get a little bit of spring water in their water dish. I put the food in small porcelain bowls at the bottom of the cage where it can't get poo'd in from overhead.

Then they get a "treat" for the morning. Usually it is a sugar snap pea or a snow pea or brocolli, some kind of green vegetable. AFter i get back from work, they get another treat such as fruit or more green veggies.

Then it starts all over again the next morning.

Sounds like your birds are getting fed really good.
I bought plastic containers with screw on lids. Keep food stored in ref. They get clean filtered water daily and also fresh food daily I try to give them some sort of veggie everyday. Lately they are into sprouts again.
They get fresh cage, food and water every morning.

well i got ecotrition seeds in couple different varieties plus regular seeds with a moulting conditioner supplement in them and i mixed them all up together ... in it they have dried tropical fruits and greens and oter stuff ... very good mixture.

i tried pellets and they would rather starve they just kick over the dish and throw them at me

i keep the seeds in a plastic container with a screw on lid in the fridge also with a post it on tat says FOR THE BIRDS NOT FOR YOU so my husband doesnt think its some kind of cereal or something in his early morning stuper lolz

every morning i clean out the cage and they get fresh fiji water ice cold ... nunu seems to love ice cold water he rushes over and gets a few big gulps of it when its cold.

sometimes ... not always .... ill put in a microscopic drop of flavor syrup in the water lol ... its organic all natural and vegan so its not bad for them and its strawberry flavor they seem to enjoy it i do that once a week tops.

i take out their flower seed cups ... after wrestling it from thier claws they cant take it when i mess with them ... i take them out and wash them and refill them .... each one hold about 2 tablespoons of seeds. and i refill them each also at lunch or dinner time.

and again i refill them at bedtime so they can snack at night or when they first wake up ... ive read its crucial to have food ready right wen they wake up cuz their metabolism isnt like ours and they need to eat asap when they wake up

they get fruits and veggies every single day ... even they are in the seeds already but those arent fresh

they get about 3-4 tablespoons of brocoli every single day ... and they love it so much

i also stick in some fruit but ussually they take only one or two bites.

ive given them bread several times as well ....

they get a good round diet of fresh "human" foods that are good for them.

at breakfast sometimes i lay out some granola on the table and i eat mine with soy milk as they chase theirs around the table lol

for bird treats they get about a inch or two of millet 2-3 times a week.

and i have those treat sticks that have banana or kiwi or honey and nut flavors ... but they really arnet into them as much as they used to be.

i also have a cup of seeds in the cage at all times ... they dont really eat from it but its always there for them and its about an actual cup full

plus almost everyday i offer them a small dish of organic fruit juice ... apple & pear or cranberry which i delute with water or orange juice


ive often wondered if i feed them too much or too little ... i know im supposed to feed them pellets but they wont take them at all so i give them as much healthy stuff as i can ... my vet said as long as they are eating alot of fresh greens and grassy stuff and other fruit and veggies they should be ok ... im tryin on the pellets though

hey helwa where ddi you get the flower cups i want to get 2 but i cant find them anywhere.

Oh I forgot mine also get millet and I have to really hold myself back giving it to them as you would not believe how much millet I have.
One of our friends grows millet for hartz mountain and we went into one of his millet fields after harvest and dollar wise what you would have to pay for it in the store I have about $500 worth of millet. We had to pick it but I certainly did not mind when we got it free. I have it stored in plastic bags in containers in our garage which is super cold. But I know its fatting if you give them to much so don't worry they don't get a steady diet of it. Also if they got to much they would not think of it as a treat.

i got them at wal mart for $2.82 each

thats the only place i found them at ... and they dont have them always but keep lookin back eventually they will have them lol they go fast

lol whoa that is a ton of millet haha

millet is fattening but its also very very nutritious for them

Helwa, do you have a picture of said flower cups? My curiousity is growing...uh no pun intended LOL!!

I'm really having a problem seeing if my boys are eating their pellets or not. Next time i buy a bag of all pellets, which will be soon, i will have to just give them straight pellets to see if they are eating it. They eat so fast its hard to keep track if the shell flew from their mouth from each bite.

But Bleu had gained two grams since May so i guess he can't be starving.

My keets will not eat pellets no matter how much I try. I give them a mixture of Kaytee Fiesta seed and Kaytee Eggcite mixed together which I keep in a plastic container. I usually mix in some moulting blend and/or greens and grains (those come in the small little containers). they also like the Kaytee honey teats. I usually change their seed dises every day or two and have 3 big dishes so om total I put about 1 c of seeds in each day (4 keets). The left overs go out on the balcony for the wild birds. I also keep a dish of pellets in the cage and they will occassionally check them out. They get a millet spray about every 2 or 3 weeks - I have a cholla perch which is great to stick the end of the millet in. They get some sort of fresh fruit or veggies every day, sometimes they eat it and sometimes not. They drink bottled spring water which gets changed daily (I have the cage so no one perches over the water dish).
My conure loves Zupreem fruit pellets and she gets a dish of thise every day plus a few tablespoons of seeds (Kaytee Fiesta) as a treat (in a separate dish), she also gets fresh fruit or veggies (whatever the keets get but in conure size pieces) daily plus she likes millet as a treat. She has 2 water dishes and sometimes I have to change them two or three times a day because she loves to dip and drop pellets intoher water plus poop in it - which I dont understand because there is no perch over it.

thats jazzie sittin on it

here below you can see it from the side ... this is when i first got my babies

i actually counted the pellets lol and then waited a day and re counted haha

but usually they just throw them all out at me ... to them its ammunition lolz

LOL...you actually counted them hihih...:)

Well, let's see. I keep the seed in this big tight container - should start storing in the fridge I guess. Every morning, I scoop 2 tbsps into 3 feeder cups, put fresh water in the other one (I have 4 feeder cups total). Then I hang about 2 kinds of vegies on 3-4 diff. places. And when I come home, I shake the feeder cups up so they don't have to dig so hard into it . I feed them these seeds from Walmart, started pellet but kinda gave up on it (I know I should be more patient). MIllets are only given about once a day or every other day after dinner time...I heard it doesn't have a lot of nutrients so try to limit it. I bought a whole big bag (groceries bag) for like 5 bucks in LA Chinatown & it's so tempting not to feed them a lot cuz it's so fun watching them pig out on those

I store the food in air tight containers and I feed the every other day.they have extra large feeding cups and there are four of them sometimes 5 cups.

I store their food in zip lock bags or sometimes i'll use a chip clip and keep the food in the original package.
In the mornings, sometimes I'll give them a mixture of crispix cereal, along with product 19 cereal, grape nuts, or somedays I'll give them some 15 grain bread then on the side they'll get dandelion greens, carrots, and parsley hung up on clips so they can pick at them. Harriet always has her zupreem pellets available and the keets pick on them also. When I get home, I'll take away their cups wash them and put some nutri-berries in (just alittle though). I'll take away the vegetables and hang up some different ones. On the weekends, I'm starting to bake them different kinds of muffins and make them hard boiled eggs. Sometimes I'll chop up some peppers, dark leafy greens, broccoli, cauliflower, and parsley and give it to them in there cups. Sometimes I boil some corn for them and let them pick at it in their cups. I'm gonna talk to my vet about give them green tea without caffeine. I heard that it's a very healthy alternative to water.

i have seen those flower cups at wal mart. they are cute!!

thanks everyone who has shared so far...i have learned alot.

Hehe, I have a sunflower cup. Kenya loves it. I clean her cage every Friday at some point during the day. I have to be up early tomorrow to travel 45 minutes so it'll be later in the day.

I let her out to fly and exercise so I take her cage to the kitchen(cage is in living room where we are most of the time). I remove the top from the bottom. Remove and empty the food dishes/treat dishes. I then remove the sliding tray and clean that. Then clean the bottom. Seed and shells get between the tray and that so it also needs to be cleaned. Then fresh food into the food dishes/treat dishes. Clean paper towel into the tray and a little bit of grit. Then put it back together. I have a water bottle instead of putting the water into a dish. She gets clean spring water in that. We have hard water so she gets spoiled and has spring water. Then the cage is put back in the living room. Since I only have the one parakeet and she has 2 black food dishes that came with the cage, plus 2 toys that have small cups on them, plus the small dish she was used to when we got her, and she now has 2 fountain looking food feeders, she has plenty for a week. Plus it's a 5 ounce water bottle so there is plenty and it doesn't get dirty from poo or food getting into it.

As for her food, I bought a thing of food at wal-mart that has a screw top on it. There is a wooden box next to the stand where her cage sits that all her food it kept in. Seed and treats.....and extra perch/toy when the top of her cage is opened.

=]]]]]]]]]] finaly saw some in at wal-mart today and picked one up ($0.87) for the zoooooo!!! I was excited. I bought three new toys and some fountain feeders for christmas for the birdies!

I feel bad now, I got the seeds my budgies eat at Bulk Barn. But I feed them half seeds, half Zupreem fruit pellets. I just fill their dish up and keep an eye out to see when it is nearly empty. I give them tap water (which is what I drink too). My birds always eat the seeds first with the occassional pellet, and then they eat the pellets.

I store my food in the bags they come in. My pellets came in a bag with a zip-up top.

Though I got a scare when I fed my bird a pomagrante kernel. I instantly forgot that I did it and so when I saw red poops in the cage I nearly had a heart attack.

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