Oh don't worry, I'm not giving up. Reading this forum I've come across how long this can take, some 6-8 months, and I'm certainly prepared for the long haul and am patient to a fault.
I've tried the zupreem fruity canary, roudybush nibbles, tops (they sent me regular sample instead of small so I cut them down), and harrison high potency super fine. Bird and I tried about 2 weeks each powdered and a week as a paste before trying the pellets on their own, no luck with any. When using powder, I've learned he will jump away from his bowl if the seeds are wet (i.e. sprayed to help powder stick). Since the harrison include a short expiration, I've kept trying to feed that over the last several weeks, paste covered offered first, then rest of the day powder covered (he'd only eat one or two seeds out of the paste before going on strike). To keep him motivated, every few mornings I start off with just seeds, otherwise, he picks up on my plotting shenanigans.
I just picked up some Caitec oven-fresh bites "small" for parakeets.. these things are too large but compared to all the other pellets have the most "flavor" and palatable aroma - very strong spice I think cardamom or clove? Yes, I've tasted them all.
This morning's training session was fun, on a totally empty crop - started with a small millet nubby, and it was apparent he was HANGRY by how he'd go for multiple chomps before I could get treat away. After he calmed down, we began the game. First, a few individual millet between my finger tips, then I'd switch to one of the pellets for a few tries, then back to millet. Here are the results:
- zupreem: he would attempt to bite only the yellow and orange ones, then spit them out. Wouldn't even try to bite for the red or green!
- harrison: bite, promptly drop or shake his head and toss it
- tops: one bite then he twisted his head with a total WTF look, eyes dilated.. every time.. I lost it snorting laughter and had to take a break because the snort spooked him into a fright flight
- roudybush: same as harrison (btw I want to like these but they look like dried budgie poop and it always catches me off gaurd and I can't tell whether to toss or keep)
- caitec: put his beak on the thing but then backed off, too big
- caitec, broken up into small pieces: he spit the first one out, but the second one he left in his beak and kind of played with it for maybe 2 seconds, then dropped it. I fumbled the next few so we stopped this for now
I also picked up some of the harrison birdie bread mix - I tried making my own a while back blending the harrison pellets, adding baking powder, but he wasn't ready. I think this time if I can get a little millet and seed mixed into the bread, and feed from my hand, he might take a few bites will try this today.
We're going to play this game all day, I'm crossing fingers he'll pick up one of them, maybe the caitec. Which is great news, except it's also the most expensive I think. Nice thing is it is easy to get, petsmart carries their rebranded version just in case I were to forget to order.
The daily change in his bravery has been amazing to watch
Felt like almost not a big deal this morning, he even began reaching out when he noticed my hand moving towards him!
