Throwing his pellets

[Gizmo_efc]

Hi everyone,

 

Been a while since I've been on here, but thought I'd pop in to ask a question.

 

My African Grey is coming upto 3 years old now and has recently started throwing the majority of his Harrisons pellets out of his bowl onto the floor.

 

He's ate these for for around 2 years now and was wondering what the sudden urge was to throw his food away?

 

He doesnt seem ill, still very loud at times :-) and is still playful.

 

One thing I've stopped doing is giving him his 'jungle mix' food around 2 hours before his bedtime. It consists of alot of seeds etc and he didnt used to throw any of this away. I stopped giving him it because I noticed a big change in his behaviour during the day, alot of screaching and very loud noise.

 

Any help would be great.

 

Thanks

[Eshana]

I have seen birds of all types do this. I assume my own Shelby does it because he knows he'll get attention if he manages to get his Zupreem past the seed guard.

[JDS5607]

Sully sometimes just gets tired of eating the pellets... kind of like a kid would get tired of eating broccoli, I suppose. Maybe skip giving it to him for a day or two? It won't hurt to miss the pellets for a couple of days, and he may start to miss them

[JDS5607]

**Unless of course that's the only food you give him for a large portion of his diet- then I would perhaps try a different brand?

[KimmieB]

Perhaps its the Harrison's itself? About a year ago we got a bag that was "over cooked". It looked darker, a bit smaller and was harder. Loki absolutely refused to eat the pellets and spent the afternoon throwing each piece out of her bowl.

We took the bag back to the vets and exchanged for one that was a lot lighter and looked like her normal Harrison's.

[MarcusCAG]

Sully sometimes just gets tired of eating the pellets... kind of like a kid would get tired of eating broccoli, I suppose. Maybe skip giving it to him for a day or two? It won't hurt to miss the pellets for a couple of days, and he may start to miss them

 

Marcus has started doing this recently, too. Doesn't throw his pellets out of his bowl, just doesn't seem interested in them. I'm rethinking his diet a bit with the help of some friendly forum member comments here and he seems pretty happy to be without his pellets for now. I'm sure he'll return to eating them with relish in time, but considering he's still eating well in the meanwhile, I've decided not to sweat it.

 

And to the OP: maybe he's looking for his Jungle Mix in his pellets, and that's why he's throwing them out? I've seen my boys sift through mixes I've given them (with pellets) and they'll just pitch out EVERYTHING that isn't what they're looking for. It was such a waste, I just stopped giving them the frills after a while since they obviously didn't want to eat them in the first place. (Which left merely the pellets, actually. Sounds like the opposite of what you're dealing with, perhaps?) So maybe getting rid of the Jungle Mix was a good move, if it was more like a bedtime treat than "real food" and making him cranky for it the rest of the day.

[JDS5607]

Also, if your grey knows he's going to get a tastier treat at some point- he won't eat what isn't as good (if he's not hungry)...

 

I mean, look at it from a human perspective. Would you eat beets if you knew that before bedtime you were going to get french fries? They are super smart. Perhaps just switching it up a bit will help?

 

ooooor, maybe he's just bored and wants to drive you crazy!