What to feed cockatiels

[cockatielcutie]

I was wondering what you all feed your cockatiels, apart from seed. I am not too sure what to feed them as all of my research contradicts itself.
I generaly feed seed, corn, egg and biscuit and carrots but what else is safe to give them?

Thanks in advance.

Chloe

[AussieBirds]

My cockatiels get corn, apple, endives, whole grain bread (cut into squares) celery tops and a large helping of sprouted seed every day and they clean it up especially the sprouted seed. They also have a constant supply of seed which is a good quality budgie seed, hulled oats all mixed in together with a sprinkling of sunflower seed.
John

[beachbird]

I give mine silverbeet, celery, bok choy, carrot, apple, capsicum, lettuce, green beans, peas, parsley, kelp, cauliflower, brocolli. I cut it all up fine, and mix it together.

I feed it to cockatiels, budgies and lovebirds, and they all love it. They prefer the vegies cooled, but not cold.

[honeyandthebee]

Hi All

In this hot heat in Qld I feed my cockateils fresh fruit and vegies but I also use, a home brand of frozen vegies in the freezer section of any supermarket.I give this to them in the mornings frozen and they love it in this heat.....

[midge]

Hi all,

I am a relatively new owner of a tiel. She is absolutely a delight and a true companion. I had no idea of the intelligence and relationship possible with those birds.

My problem is feeding. I feed her two taqblesspoons (20ml each) of Hagen mix. This seems a really complete mix to this I add half a tablespoon of the mix (non descript tiel gain mix) she was fed on before I got her. I have no idea if 2 and a half tablespoon a day is enough, but there always seems to be heaps left. I refresh very morning. On top of that a have a bar of those small parrots honey/grains hanging which she does get at from time to time and I had millet sprays available.

Now, she only seems to eat the small grains, picks and chooses. Even the mil;let is a second choice to her. She seems very healthy and personable, but I failed lamentably with giving her to-date: apple, banana (fresh and dried), multigrain bread, brocolli, spinach, sprouted seeds (various), carrots, standard corn and baby corn.. I also tried little pieces of chicken and other cooked meat, hard boiled eggs. She won't touch any of those, but keep picking out the small grains and sunflower seeds in her mix. I even tried organic toasted muesli!

Should I worry?

By the way the mix I use is described here (http://www.hagen.com/canada/english/birds/addinfo/livingworld.cfm) Premium cockatiel is the product I use. It sure looks good and complete.

Thanks for any advice.

MidGe

[petiel]

I wean my baby handreared cockatiels onto Bird Munchies Cockatiel Blend seed. It is a very good seed with lots of the smaller seeds and only a small amount of sunflower. This seed is easily found in supermakets and it also containes some shell grit. I would never tell people to buy Hagens mix for a baby cockatiel, it has a lot of big hard seeds in it. You can mix it with some small seeds.
Cockatiels are not big fruit and vegie eaters like large parrots, they love spouted seeds, frozen peas and corn, silverbeet, brown bread and a little apple.

[fuzzydragonfly]

Bird munchies seed as really good and I also feed budgie pellets (which is exactly the same as tiel pellets), a little apple is good too.
I also nick a boquet of native flowers every weekend from flats down the road, they have a native garden and it's got flowers all year round (although they do get a little scarse around winter). There are all sorts of flowers including banksia, several types of gravillia, and a couple other native flowers that I don't know the name of.
It's benificial to mimick their natural diet as best as possible.