African Grey parrot doesn't eat fruit?

Question

He does eat apple and banana but will avoid all other kinds of fruit and vegetables. Our other Grey loves all kinds of fruit but the baby (almost 6 months) will only eat apple and banana. I know that his breeder fed him apple so he is used to eating it.

I tried peach, grape, strawberry, cucumber etc etc he won't even try it or pluck it apart or something he will just take it, l**k on it, and throw it away.

I'm a bit worried that he won't get all the vitamins he needs and he is still growing.

Is there any way I can encourage him to eat his fruit and especially green veggies (I know, no avocado) ?

The thing is he loves apple and banana so much he could eat them all day- so whenever I offer a piece of apple he'll take it and eat all of it. I wonder if a parrot can have too much apple and if it could be bad for him (he still eats his seeds and stuff). if i let him eat as much apple as he wants he manages to eat 1 1/2 apple a day plus a whole banana plus seeds. this seems like a huge amount to me (compared to my other parrot). is it because he's growing ? he is not overweight or anything (he gets a lot of time out of his cage as well.

is this sth to worry about or is he fine ?

Answer 1

she is fine she just doesn't like them they are just like us we don't like eating flowers

Answer 2

You're so lucky that your Greys eat fruits at all ~ mine is so picky that he doesn't like *anything*.

Greys are notorious for being picky eaters. Once, I read a story about a woman who tried to get her Grey to eat carrot. She tried offering carrot in every way imaginable: sliced, shredded, cooked, whole, julienne strips - you name it. But it took several years for the Grey to finally decide that he'd eat carrot a certain way.

So I guess the advice is to not give up, and keep trying. You could try getting creative by making the food into a toy of some sort, so it would be more interesting. I've taken a potato peeler and made strips of carrot, then punched a little hole in each piece so I could tie them up with string. I don't think my bird ate much of it, but at least he was interested enough to chew on it. If you do a search, I'm sure you can find some websites that give great advice on making food-related toys, or just something on getting your bird to try new things in general.

You said he still eats his seeds ~ so I'm assuming that you've got him on a seed diet. If you're really concerned about nutrition, I would try switching him to a pellet diet [I recommend ZuPreem Fruit Blend]. Pellet diets are great because every piece has the same nutritional value ~ so your bird can't pick and choose what he wants to eat.

Also, the amount of apples and bananas your bird eats seems quite excessive to me. I'd either knock down the amount, or only offer those things a couple times a week as a treat.