Cockatiel Diet

How to Properly Feed Your Pet Cockatiel

No matter what type of pet you have, whether its cats, dogs, hamsters or birds, a nutritious diet is always the secret to providing them with a longer life. Just like humans, how long an animal will live depends on how well they eat in addition to how much exercise they get. With the cockatiel, its average lifespan is anywhere from 12 to 15 years, but those that are well fed and get plenty of exercise have been known to live for 20 or even 30 years in some cases. Here is a guide to help you provide the best cockatiel diet for your bird.

Perhaps the best cockatiel diet is the one developed by Tom Roudybush, who worked for 15 years doing extensive research on the best food for a nutritious meal to feed to a cockatiel. There have been several modifications made to his diet plan over the years, and different things work for different birds. The basic diet he came up with consists of 25% cockatiel seed mix that has been enriched with vitamins, 25% regular cockatiel food pellets, 25% dark leafy greens, fruit and other vegetables, 15% mixture made up of corn, beans, and cooked rice, and 10% people food, such as cereal, pasta, bread, meat, cheese and grains. Just like any other animal, fresh drinking water should be provided daily and made available to your pet at all times.

Many times, people will start with this basic cockatiel diet and let their bird pick and choose what they like to eat. Then you can take out the things they don’t like and replace them with foods that offer the same nutritional value. Since you are going to be feeding your cockatiel real food like fruits and vegetables, it will be important to remove the food after a couple of hours to ensure your bird doesn’t eat something that is spoiled or rotten.

Just dogs and cats, there are some foods that cockatiels should never eat. Even though these foods are perfectly safe for human consumption, they can be poisonous or even deadly for cockatiels. Rhubarb, any form of avocado, chocolate, and anything with caffeine are considered toxic, and in the case of avocado, deadly, for your cockatiel diet. Although it is not considered toxic or deadly, anything with high amounts of sugar should be avoided as it is very unhealthy for your cockatiel. Avoid alcohol, which can damage the liver and seeds or pits from fruits, as they are toxic as well.