Ask Lafeber

Cockatiel diet

So we have our first cockatiel, Tootles. Our 4 month old beauty is so sweet and fits into our family wonderfully. We want to make sure she is getting the best nutrition possible. We are feeding her Kaytee Forti-diet pro health. She is picky and is not eating fresh fruits and veggies. She will occasionally take basil but not much else. We also give her spray millet once per week but from what I’ve read we don’t need any to give her too much of that. Is the Kaytee Forti-diet enough for her or are there too many seeds in it? Do you recommend something else to optimize her nutrition? I’ve read pellets are important but when I go to the store I get overwhelmed by all the options and feel I’m not picking the right stuff. Specific brand names would be Soooo helpful! Thanks for your time!

Hi Nikki,

It’s great that you want to do the best by Tootles – very cute name! I’m not familiar with that diet, but if it contains loose seeds, then she is not going to get the nutrition she needs. Fresh seeds are nutritious, but the seeds in loose mixes are generally not fresh enough to retain their nutrients. If vitamins are added, the bird doesn’t get them because the vitamins are lost when the bird removes the hulls. If there are pellets mixed in, most birds just pick out the seeds, so again she isn’t getting the full nutrition she needs. We recommend a nutritionally balanced diet like pellets or our foraging diets as 80% of the daily diet. I understand all of this can be confusing, but any of the quality brands of pellets will be similar in nutrition. We do make two kinds of pellets in addition to our unique foraging diets. Our foraging diets are nutritionally balanced the same as a pellet, but they are not ground up. So they contain the whole seeds that are part of the natural diet for cockatiels, as well as other nutritious ingredients. We use fresh, human grade seeds with the hulls removed. All the ingredients are coated with a nutritious binder, so every bite the bird eats contain the nutrition they need and there are no hulls to waste. This allows them to enjoy seeds while getting the nutritional benefit of pellets. Our foraging diets can be fed alone or combined with pellets. You can offer dark leafy greens, chopped veggies, some fruit and other healthy foods like nuts as 20% of the diet. Spray millet is just a treat and should be offered sparingly.

We offer a way for your bird to try our most popular diets without you having to buy full sized bags. Our Foraging Fun Packs contain small sizes of our 4 most popular diets, which are all nutritionally balanced as a complete diet. Again, these can be fed alone or combined as the main diet. For the foraging diets – Nutri-Berries & Avi-Cakes – you might need to crumble them some to begin with because they do not always recognizes the berry or cake shapes as something they can eat. Here is a link to these sampler packs – I’m sure Tootles can find one or more that she loves!

https://lafeber.com/pet-food/bird-food/foraging-fun-pack/?v=7516fd43adaa

Thank you for asking Lafeber,

Brenda