Your Parakeet's Diet

Feeding your parakeet is easy. Prepared packaged foods are sold in grocery stores as well as in pet shops. Be sure you buy parakeet seed and not seed intended for canaries. Place the seed in the feed cup on the side of the cage, and check this cup daily. Remember that parakeets shell seeds as they eat them, so most of the empty hulls will fall back into the cup. These hulls look like full seeds and make the cup appear to be full of food. While you are cleaning the bird's cage, take the food cup out of the cage and gently blow into it. The light, empty hulls will fly out, leaving the full seeds in the bottom of the cup.

In addition to parakeet seed, treat foods are available for you bird. Parakeets love treat foods, and they will eat these seeds as fast as they can. Treat seeds are too rich to be fed as a steady diet, but a small amount should be fed once a day. Pet shops sell little shallow cups made especially for treat seeds.

Although seeds are the parakeet's basic food, they are not a complete diet. Your bird should have leafy green vegetables about once or twice a week. Good greens to feed your pet are celery, carrot tops, or the growing greens sold in pet shops. Attach the greens to the side of the cage with clip clothespin. Make sure that they do not fall to the bottom of the cage, where they would be soiled by the bird's droppings. Also do not feed your bird too many greens, because they can cause it to have loose bowel movements. (The droppings will appear watery and green.) If this happens, do not feed your bird any more greens until it starts having normal droppings.

There are two other items that are important to your bird's diet: cuttlebone and gravel. A bird needs cuttlebone for sharpening its beak and keeping it worn down.
A bird also needs the calcium that cuttlebone supplies. Cuttlebone is actually the dried internal shell of the cuttlefish, rich in calcium and other nutrients. Cuttlebones are sold in pet shops and grocery stores, with wires for attaching them to the side of a cage.

The second item important to a bird's diet is gravel. As we learned earlier, birds need gravel to help their digestion. Special bird gravel is sold in stores that sell bird seed. Each day as you clean the cage, sprinkle a thin layer of gravel on the bottom of the cage. The bird will scratch around the cage and use the gravel as it needs it. Some people prefer putting bird gravel in small cups next to the food. Use the method that suits you best. Make sure there is  plenty of gravel available.