What we feed our birds is a difficult question to get an exact answer for. Here are some suggestions from Tiel Chat members on what they feed their birds.

Lillian says:
What do I feed my birds? You really want to know, lol? I mix about 50-50 pellets and bird seed, and each pair gets about 1/3 cup of this every day. I make a cooked mixture of several types of pastas, spaghetti, linguini, etc; different types of dry beans, navy, pinto, kidney, etc; rice cooked with crunched up cinnamon sticks; split peas, lentils, barley, dried hot peppers. This of course makes quite a large batch, so I divide it up and freeze it. I chop up hard boiled eggs, and give them a bit of that almost every day. About once a week I stir a little vitamin in with their egg, and twice a week I sprinkle a mixture of digestive enzyme, BeneBac, and Brewers yeast over their soft food. (I keep this in a salt shaker) Every day they get a mixture of thawed frozen peas, corn, and lima beans. They also get 1/2-1/3 spray of millet, and a small piece of brown bread. I grate carrots and give them that daily. Also, every day they get 2-3 other kinds of fresh fruit or veggies; apple, orange, green beans, broccoli, corn on the cob, some type of green like parsley, kale, endive, etc. Needless to say, they don't "clean up their plates", lol, but they do eat a varied diet and are pretty healthy. Popcorn won't hurt them, as long as it isn't salted or buttered. I almost forgot, for treats I also give them unsweetened cereal like chex, cheerios, puffed wheat, etc., and nutriberries, avicakes, etc.

Mary & Chris respond to Lillian:
Your menu sounds Wonderful and you are much more ambitious than Chris' momma... We do have sweet potato every few days and pasta and rice and white potatos (his fav) Daily spring salad...organic
and
now Chris also gets a lot of L*M Gold seed mix for tiels daily and Lafeber pellets for tiels as well as Hagen's tropican *no preservatives.. He eats all three meals with Mom and I too.. He gets the frozen veggies about 4 days a week plus if I go to the salad bar at the store I get him a couple pieces of broccoli and cauliflower.. It just isn't possible to buy the veggies in bunches cause I end up throwing them out cause Mom and I don't eat much.. freezing is useless to me cause I might as well buy frozen. He just recently started eating the sunflower seeds in his mix and since then he has gone from 86 gm to 90gm.. and looks better.. tho he always looked healthy...

Gail adds her comments:
Wow Lillian, You have much more ambition than I do also LOL Here's what I feed mine.. They always have 2 cups containing seed (tiel, keet mix) and one cup containing about 3/4 scoop of pellets in their cage (both Kaytee brand). In the morning I give them either fresh carrots, broc., & parsley or frozen/thawed peas, carrots, green beans, corn & lima beans (most days I'm lazy & they get the frozen stuff). I put either a small amount of pellets on the side or a piece of birdie bread. About once ever 2 weeks I give them some egg too. In the afternoon I give them a 1/2 spray of millet and some Sun Seed dehydrated fruit. I also give them some pasta & turkey etc. whenever we are having it for dinner which usually amounts to about once every 3 weeks or so. I am thinking of switching from the Kaytee Exact pellets to Harrisons due to the 'all natural stuff' and the Spiralina. Any comments on their diet are welcome!

Here is what Linda does:
In the morning I give them a bean and pasta mix along with the seed and pellet that are always in there. Around noonish I give them 1 millet spray per 4 birds. At dinner time I give them fresh veggies or steamed frozen veggies. Also on the evening when we are having a snack I give them some cheerios or rice krispis small amount or broccoli(they love broccoli ) and maybe once a week some popcorn(unsalted ad no butter) Once a week I also give them a kaytee vitamin, mineral stick. There treats really vary though. Sometimes instead of popcorn they get wheat toast with a little peanut butter. Also a couple times a week I give them birdie cornbread. So really a variety of alot of things

This is what Betty is cooking up tonight:
The diet plan I use with my birds is very simple and I find it works well for me. Basically it consists of one bowl of seed and one bowl of pellets per every four birds. The bowl holds approximately 1/2 to 3/4 cup.I usually feed 1/3 cup pellets and 1/2 cup seed per four birds. The seeds are blown out daily and depending on amount eaten I refill accordingly. I alternate days of using a sprinkle of spirulina, wheat grass, lactobacillius, and brewers yeast. For example the first day sprinkle with spirulina, skip second day, third day use brewers yeast, skip fourth day, fifth day use wheat grass, skip sixth day and then use lactobacillius on the seventh day. I have found that these products add color and essentially is the replacement for adding vitamins to their diet. I will only buy my spirulina from Earthrise and their website is www.greensuperfood.com. I also am going to start ordering my wheat grass from them. Along with the seed and pellet diet they get fresh veggies once or twice a week which consists of Romaine Lettuce, Collards, Mustard Greens, Red Leaf Lettuce, parsley, and cilantro depending what I find or have on hand. They get Cockatiel Cornbread about two or three times a week. I have corn, brocolli or peas added to the cornbread along with some brown rice. On days that they don't receive the above items I give them either Cherrios, Grape-Nuts, Corn Flakes, and finely crushed Monkey Biscuit in a small bowl to nibble on. Paulie and Topper receive a treat dish of Nutriberries: Veggie or Spicy and some Avi-Cake daily. The outside birds get this treat a couple of times a week. I feed them millet approximately three times a week. I also provide them with a mineral block and for the hens if laying I will add a cuttlebone. At one time I added GSE to the water but since reading an article from Dr. Alicia McWatters I have quit using it except for cleaning the floor on the patio and difficult cages. It is also great for cleaning ceramic floor where the dogs have had an accident. Here is her Link:
http://www.parrothouse.com/gse.html
Here are some links from my Webpage for recipes....
http://www.birdsnways.com/birds/recipes.htm http://www.acstiels.com/recipes.html http://www.rarrgh.com/beakappitweet/welcome.html http://www.theaviary.com/recipes.shtml

We all want to know what Susanne feeds her 400+ cockatiels: I am a small commercial breeder. My income depends on healthy, happy cockatiels and babies. I've gone full circle on the diets. I've started with seed, then went to the vitamin fortified seed, then to the pellets, from there doing the cooking and veggies and back to seed. Through *elimination* of all I've given over the past 5+ years, I'm full circle to 95% of my diet consisting of seed. The remainder is a small piece of wheat bread daily, local fresh vegetation (different items several times a week), and monkey biscuit 1-2 times a week. My observations are of 400+ cockatiels, which many are 2nd to 5th generation on my property. Someone brought up an interesting point as to possible pesticides and preservative in seed. This is something I am pursuing in regards to 2 local suppliers. How a supplier 'stores' seed makes a difference. Many *treat* (and do not disclose what is used) seed so that is physically appealing ( bug free. etc.) to the end consumer. Local humidity makes a difference. Nutritional value at the tail-end of a season is also dependent on how the seed was stored. If in silo's, excessive heat build-up reduces nutrient content. This also applies to the grains used for pellets. If someone would do a survey of the time of year when sudden deaths from diet are the highest, it would be from Aug- late October. Or, secondary problems, during this time period, which would be aflatoxins and aspirgillius, from end of season storage practices. The *mix* of seed per species makes a difference. Many mixes have 'fillers' >(excess oat groat, buckwheat, etc.) that the birds rarely eat, thus a contributor to support the malnutrition theory. Sunflower seeds vary in nutritional value, such as black oil versus striped, yet the reports on fat are of the black oil variety's. Varying nutritional needs during season changes need to be addressed, such as more fat...less fat, etc. Overfeeding, and allowing a bird to 'cherry pick' also contributes to obesity, and/or malnutrition. Cockatiels WILL have fatty liver problems regardless of the diet. This species is physically designed for lots of excersise, which sadly in a pet situation is lacking. Caging for type of species makes a difference. When the newness wears of the bird spends 95% of it's life sitting in a cage. I believe exposure to sunlight and fresh air make a difference. Lack of socializing with other birds in a flock situation makes a difference. Supplementing and water treatments make a difference...or lack of, such as distilled water usage, which is void of minerals. As far as I'm concerned **the whole picture** has to be addressed, rather than attacking a certain diet. And as far as I can tell, the statistics do not cover or mention these variables. As to myself, I have learned that cockatiels will cherry pick. Early on I asked a vet what is the amount this species will eat in a day. I was told a cockatiel will consume about 1 oz. per day, slightly more if it is a large active bird. I started *measuring* my seed, using a 3 oz. paper bathroom dixie cup. Each pair gets 1 cup (3 oz.) per day of seed. The only time my birds are caged is when they are set-up for breeding. The remainder of the time they are in intermediate holding (resting pairs, 2-3 wks) cages or large walk-in flights. If there is 50 birds in a flight, I measure out 25 cups of seed. In a 24 hour period of time, when I change feed again, there is still a small remainder of seed I am throwing out. When there are babies hatching and in the nest, I daily measure and adjust the amount given per pair. Doing this is also my first alert to a problem. I know exactly have much each cage/flight consumes in a day. If I see that there is a drop in seed consumption (early morning check), I am alerted to a possible problem. Two things that have NEVER shown up in necropsy reports is fatty liver or malnutrition. I vary my mix per seasons. I use 4 different mixes: Cockatiel, parakeet, finch and canary. During the winter I use predominately keet food and cut in striped sunflower seed, more as the weather gets colder. Every few weeks I will also cut in small amounts of finch and canary. During the spring I will add more canary seed. During the summer, again I use mainly parakeet seed, and reduce the striped sunflower. When we go thru our rainy periods I add more of the finch and canary (smaller seeds), and increase the amounts of grass and local vegetation. Early on I was doing the cooking, veggies, and eggfoods. I was also having alot of yeast and bacterial problems. Each time I eliminated (first the cooked foods) an item the problems lessened. Totally eliminating all of these items also eliminated 98% of my yeast and bacterial problems!! Thus, I also started getting larger, healthier babies from the seed diet. I have 2 groups I can use for comparison. 300+ birds are outside, and the remaining 100 birds are inside. Both groups have access to free flight, and the outdoors. The inside birds have a window pass-thru to the outside from their flight room. Both groups get measured seed, daily bread, varied and rotated amounts of grass and local vegetation. The inside birds are mainly pets and I'll still give them cooked stuff, like butternut squash, or raw corn on the cob, corn muffins, etc. The inside birds that get the additional items to eat have more problems with yeast, bacteria, and smaller babies. The measured diet has not effected the size and thriftiness, and most of all health of the cockatiels. Each generation has shown an increase in size and prolificness. In comparison to all other local breeders (of cockatiels) I have less health related problems, and I am 4-5 times larger than my competitors. Would I call my diet, and abusive diet?.No! Are my birds abused? No they are physically and physiologically well maintained. I feel I have adequately addressed their needs and a lot of the variables I listed in the beginning of this letter. I am very content with what I am doing, and I have a large enough group of birds to *visually* see the overall results.

Addendum: a few months later, I believe a lot of the flowers are rich in bioflavinoids (sp) some vitamin A and rich in vitamin C. Colors of the flowers also have different nutrient content. I had a site that did have a breakdown of the nutrient value in wild plants, flowers and roots...but it is somewhere *among the missing* on the long list of links I have saved. If I find it I will post it. From personal experiences I have seen flowers help birds overcome past histories of chronic respiratory problems. Since my cockatiels are feed a seed diet, I have been trying to supply all other sources of nutrients, vitamins, minerals in the form of natural grasses, plants, flowers, leaves, barks, etc. Over the last 2 years I have seen a dramatic improvement with my flock and the babies in the nest.