Sunflower seeds are too high in fat for budgies on a regular basis.debbie276 wrote:My advice is to skip the budgie seed mix, and just use the finch mix you are already feeding your finches.I thought budgies liked the bigger seeds like sunflower etc, they are not in my finch mixSo, budgies eat finch mix of seeds?Most of the seeds in my finch mix are small
Since I breed mine, I like to make sure they have as wide a variety of different seeds as possible, so they can pick and choose the specific ones they need during the different phases of the breeding cycle. I've read that this is what they do, but I have never been able to tell for sure, just by looking.
But to give them a wide choice, I feed finch mix and canary mix, which I buy in 50# bags and serve separately in mason jar feeders. The budgies hardly touch the canary mix, but they eat the finch mix with much less waste than when I used to feed them parakeet mix.
They do tend to leave behind the tiny black seeds. And the canary mix is heavy on "canary grass seed", which my budgies always leave behind, although I have heard from other people that their budgies love that one, so go figure.
My finches and Bourkes eat the canary mix, along with its canary grass seed much more than the budgies do, but still leave the tiny black ones.
For my breeding budgies, I also give whole oat groats, but I don't give those to the finches.
The Bourke's get oat groats all the time, as well as black sunflower seed and safflower seed. I wouldn't dare give any of those to the budgies very often, or they would become porkers!
But if you look on the ingredients list of the budgie (parakeet) mix and the finch mix, you will see that all the budgie seeds are also found in the finch, plus some extras, so by giving finch mix, you aren't cutting out anything that the parakeet mix had except for the fillers.
Oh, and if they don't eat fresh veggies, just keep trying. If they weren't raised on them, it can take a long long time for an adult budgie to be willing to try them. But once they do, they will learn to love them. Just keep giving veggies over and over, so that they become familiar with them and get over their "fear of the unknown". Try all different kind of forms too, like whole, chopped, raw, cooked. Once you get the ball rolling, it will get easier. A couple good starter veggies are celery leaves and carrot tops, corn and peas, and seeding heads of grasses from outside, as long as you know they weren't sprayed.
Try making a perch out of a carrot, attached to the wires. Budgies like to chew on their perches, and once they find out they can eat that one....
(Oh, I'm so sorry, I could talk about budgies all day! )
little fartknockers 
I'm Will ... single dad with 3 daughters
