Are Lafeber pure pellets any better nutritionally than Lafeber Nutri-berries?
What’s the best way to get older budgies to eat pellets?
I read budgies eat insects in the wild but I assume feeding budgies insects is NOT necessary given the protein in pellets/Nutri-berries?
Hi Taso,
Lafeber’s foraging diets – Nutri-Berries, Pellet-Berries and Avi-cakes are nutritionally balanced the same as a pellet, but they are not ground up. This goes for all flavors of the above. All pellets are made from ground seeds, grains and other ingredients and then formed into a pellet. Our foraging diets contain whole seeds that have been hulled, so the bird gets the benefit of whole ingredients and added supplements.
It can be challenging to get a budgie to eat pellets. However, you can much more easily convert to Nutri-Berries because of the whole seeds. With either diet, you would begin by adding some pellets or Nutri-Berries to the regular food the bird is used to. We find that they learn to eat the Nutri-Berries more quickly if you start out by crumbling them. Then you eventually decrease the amount of the regular food until the bird is only eating pellets and/or Nutri-Berries. If you click this link, it will take you to the point in a recent webinar where Dr Lafeber explains the benefits of including some whole seeds in a budgie’s diet, which is why Nutri-Berries can be better for a budgie than pellets. Budgies and most other parrots probably do consume some insects in the wild, but pet bird diets are formulated to account for that need.
Thank you for asking Lafeber,
Brenda
