Before bringing home our first parakeet I had already decided that I would start Toby off on a seed-based diet, to make her transition from the pet store easier. There are so many conflicting reviews on Amazon that I ended up buying two well-rated seed blends and then mixing those together. They were F.M. Brown’s Encore Parakeet Food
Those were going fine as far as Toby was concerned, but I started doing more research and read about how seeds are not sufficient nutrition for parakeets, not only are they full of fat but they also don’t have enough vitamins and minerals, and parakeets on a seed-based diet may have much shorter lives than those on a pellet-based diet.
Of course as someone who just fell in love with parakeets the thought of consigning mine to an early death was horrifying! I immediately purchased a bag of ZuPreem FruitBlend Flavor Pellets
Back to the drawing board – and thank goodness these are all relatively inexpensive products, so it’s not a hardship to do some experimentation and I heartily recommend it.
My next try was RoudyBush Crumbles
We began reducing the percentage of seed and adding in pellets at about a 50% ratio, but it just didn’t feel right cutting seeds out entirely. Doing some more research, I found that there’s not enough evidence for me that pellets are really nutritionally complete, and more than that, if it’s bad for me to eat a diet of processed foods, then why would it be good for my parakeet?
I also started reading about how a pellet diet could be very detrimental to a bird’s mental health. Thinking about it this way, if someone told you tomorrow that you were going to eat oatmeal every day, every meal, for the rest of your life, how would that go over with you? What do you think that would do to your overall happiness?
Especially as it relates to budgies, their beaks are designed to hull seeds and their bodies are designed to process them. It just doesn’t seem right to me to take that away completely.
As it stands now, I’m feeding one tablespoon of Roudybush nibbles pellets per day with two tablespoons of Kaytee Forti-Diet Pro Health Parakeet Food
We do also offer a fruit or vegetable every day in addition to the pellets and seeds, they get some interest, hopefully enough to supplement their diet and provide some mental enrichment too.
I haven’t gotten interested yet in going the homemade route, sprouting seeds and mixing up batches of super healthy ingredients, but check back with me in a year or so and I might be there.
Until then, this is what we feed and so far so good!
Ultimately, what to feed your parakeet is a very personal decision and everyone has to come to their own conclusions about what they think is best. Toby got a hull stuck in her throat in spring of this year and for about 24 hours I thought she was probably going to die. Thankfully we were able to help her dislodge it, but I walked away from that experience pretty adamant that we were switching to pellets and I would never look back.
It didn’t stick, obviously, because I think that a life of just eating pellets would probably be so unsatisfying for her that the risk is worth it.
Good luck to everyone making these choices, they are certainly not easy, and I can’t say that even now I think one way or the other is correct or “the best”, everyone can only do what feels right to them, and what works for their household.
Update, we later completely abandoned pellets and now feed a mixture of Volkman Avian Science Super Parakeet
– which was only interesting to Toby if we were playing with it too, and was sort of a bust for us, although a perfectly nice product. She might have found it more interesting if her wings were clipped.
, as it comes out of the box it is fairly inappropriate for a small bird like a parakeet, but as you see below we quickly loaded it up with a ton of perches and toys, it’s very easy to hop around this way. On days that aren’t too hot we keep it in front of our big living room window so they can look outside, which they both enjoy (unless there are crows around).
and a couple of other small toys that are suspended securely from the ceiling. This is another favorite spot of both parakeets. Especially on nice days when the window is open and they can yell at all the outdoor birds.
, which was another utter fail. Toby is just as happy if I throw some toys out on the dining room table or couch.
(seen above), which is a great quality cage with a lot of features, like the double-locking front door and bowl holders that swing out for easy feeding and watering. It worked out really well for socializing, as you can see in the picture. The seed catcher also helped minimize messes.
, they can catch a lot of liquid without anything seeping through (expect some water bowl spills), and it couldn’t be more convenient to take off the top sheet every day or two.
or 
which they chew on to fill in on some gaps in their diet, particularly calcium.
, your parakeet may not know it right when he comes home, but this is his favorite treat.