What I feed to our birds

My order is in today! So here is what my birds eat. The food in the picture is good for about 6 months, some items might last a little longer than that.

Pellets

Harrison's high potency Fine (I have mash too, Didi loves that!) and Roudybush maintenance pellets, about 15g per day for both of them - now it's around 25g a day, Ned the baby eats so much! At the moment I am giving them Harrison's high potency only, because they have Ned. Once Ned starts eating on his own, I will slowly introduce Roudybush and only when Ned leaves home, they will be getting Harrison's 4 days a week, and Roudybush 3 days a week.

I chose these two particular brands because they are both GMO free. Harrison's is also organic, which is great, but it is also more expensive. Both of them contain right amounts of protein and fat, have no harmful additives or artificial colouring. Once the bags are open, I keep them in the freezer, and I have only a batch of pellets aside the cage that is good for a week or two. I also store the crumbles of pellets and reuse them for snacks later.

Update (2015/05/16) - I just found out that Roudybush is not GMO-free. I will not be buying it in the future. I will be looking for healthier alternatives, because I like giving two types of pellets for variation - I will let you know what it will be!

Snacks

My rule of thumb is that I give them the total weight of snacks per day equal to the weight of pellets that they have eaten on that particular day. What I have noticed is that they anticipate their snacks and starve themselves out for them. So I outsmarted my birds (good for me, my PhD comes in handy for outsmarting a lovebird!) this way. If they are leaving their pellets out, they are not getting much of their snacks either. Too bad - eat your pellets! Here is the list of most valued snacks in our aviary / home.

Nutri-berries consists of 20% of pellets, so it can be given as a main meal, but I give it as a treat only - they like it so much, they could die for it, but it is not really cheap. They get one or two of the nutriberries balls each day, depending what else they will be getting that day.

I sprout 2-3 teaspoons of dry TOP seeds every 3 days, it yields me about three servings. I occasionally sprout some lentils or other stuff as well. More on sprouting later. Germinated seeds are nutrient bombs, they are absolutely essential to your bird's diet. Don't leave them out. Your bird will thank you :).

I also got Volkman's seed mix this time. I found it so hard finding a good seed mix here in Canada, as I would prefer organic (I miss my supplier in the Netherlands :( ), so I ordered this one. I don't know its GMO or organic status at all. I didn't find any information regarding use of GMO corn in their products, although I saw that some retailers advertise Volkman seeds as GMO-free. I still have my reservations and will email Volkman sometime soon. Meanwhile, if you have any information, please let me know.

Millet is for baby use only! Since Ned is the only baby in the family, his parents should consider themselves lucky, because as soon as Ned starts exploring foods, they will have a rare opportunity to feast on millet. I do not give it otherwise, as my seed mixes usually contain millet already. Millet is high in protein content and low in fat, which would make it a perfect grain, but unfortunately it lacks vitamin A completely and is high in carbohydrates. Obviously Ned won't be able to finish the whole pack of millet before he leaves the family, so what remains, will go into my home made lovebird snacks - beak entertainers. More on that later!

Fruit / vegetables / legumes - although I always say that lovebirds should eat some fruit and vegetables, mine just don't. They treat vegetables as if it's toxic or will bite them. They throw it out of their food bowl as if it's rubbish. Sometimes they will nibble on an apple, grape or peach.  What they do like, are green lentils. I cook them till they are still a little hard - they stand on their heads in the food bowl! They will nibble on rice, but they are not too impressed with that either. And they give me this nasty look if I offer them pasta "Are you kidding???".I offer them fruit or vegetables every day, when I am preparing meals for ourselves. But that is just not what they like and want - I hope you are being more successful!