Does a Bird Care What the Color of Their Food Is?

Looking at a handful of bland colored seeds you wouldn't think your bird cares one way or another about the color of his food. In the wild, though, birds rely on color to help them tell the difference between the green leaves of trees and the fruits, nuts and seeds they survive on. Switch Ferris from his colorless seed diet to one with brightly colored pellets and you'll find which colors he's attracted to.

  1. Color Matters

    • Ferris sees color differently than you do. Bright colors interest him because in the wild, they typically indicate something edible. That's why many commercial parrot foods contain a rainbow of colors. Any parrot parent who feeds her feathered family one of these multi-colored diets can tell you that favorite colored pieces disappear from the bowl first, and the less preferred ones remain until the next feeding time. From time to time, parrots may change their minds about the colors they eat. You may go for weeks tossing out the yellow and green pieces of food and suddenly find that Ferris has switched to eating the yellow and green pieces, but leaves the red and orange ones untouched.

    Does it Matter?

    • If you feed Ferris a prepared parrot diet, it shouldn't matter which colors he eats on any given day because all the morsels are made from the same recipe and are just colored and flavored differently. If your bird exclusively eats fresh food, though, he may not be getting a balanced diet if he only eats red food, for instance, and shuns all other colors. This finicky aspect of your parrot's nature makes it essential to feed him a variety. Base his diet with a commercially prepared food, but supplement with fresh foods to encourage him to select from an assortment to ensure he gets proper nutrition.

    Colorful Foods for Birds

    • When you want to give Ferris healthy treats he's likely to be attracted to, the BirdChannel.com recommends looking to the rainbow as a color guide and matching up fruits and vegetables accordingly. Strawberries, cherries (pitted, of course) mangoes, oranges, yellow and green peppers, sugar snap peas, blueberries plums and grapes will provide a colorful, tasty assortment along with nutritious vitamins.

    Introducing Colors

    • Parrots are notorious for resisting change, so there's a good chance Ferris won't take to a new diet immediately. Start by mixing a new parrot food in equal amounts with his old food, and then gradually reduce the amount of the old food until you're feeding him only the new, more colorful diet. He may still pick out only certain colors or might favor one color one day and switch to a new color the next. In his book "Parrots: The Animal Answer Guide" Matt Cameron suggests parrot parents present food in containers that require the bird to make an effort to get to the food. Parrots love to solve puzzles, so Ferris is more likely to eat any color food that he gets as a reward for deciphering a brain teaser.