Usage of the cuttlebone

[Mavish]

Ok, well my budgie doesn't use the cuttle bone, i put it right next to his/her feeder but never touches it. Is there a way to encourage him/her to use the bone, (a special place to put it or something?), or should i just buy something else.

thank you (sorry about asking so many questions)

[Joey]

Um...you could try with a knife to scrap of some cuttle bone in a powder and spread it on top of his food.My birds like it but they also chew on it from the cage bars.Your budgie should also just give it some time.

[Dave]

We have a cuttle bone in our budgies' cage. Sometimes they'll eat it, but it's not their favorite. We don't force them or encourage them in any way either. I've heard of flavored cuttle bones. Maybe that'd work. We used to have a banana-flavored one at one point and they enjoyed it.

[Bea]

I figuire that just providing it is enough. If they feel like they need it they'll use it. Blinkie only occasionally has a nibble of his.

[Joey]

Oh yes I forgot about that there are flavored cuttle bones!My 2 budgies ate a flavored one in 1 day...lol!

[Bea]

That's a bad thing.....too much calcium is just as bad as not enough.

[Budgiekin]

Many times when budgies apparently look like they are eating the cuttle bone, they aren't actually ingesting it. Skyla is a case in point for that. I give her a new cuttle bone every couple of days (when she goes through her cuttle bone obsession phases), but she does not actually ingest much of it. Most of it is simply scraped by her beak and lands on the floor of her cage. So having said that, I wouldn't be too concerned about a budgie having too much cuttle bone unless they are actually ingesting it all.

[Amy]

Billy and Lily are mad over cuttlebones, they eat about 1 in a week!

[vivalis]

My budgie Phinny has a vanilla flavored cuttlebone that he really likes. I'm not sure where you are located, but if you are in the US, I bought it at Petco. Petco is a pretty big pet store chain, so they might have one near you. They also have a website, but I don't know if they sell it there. He definitely likes the flavored one and chews on it quite a bit. Hope this helps!

[Budgiekin]

That's really neat; a vanilla flavoured cuttle bone! I have seen strawberry ones but I hesitate to give those to my budgies, especially Skyla, because she has a tendency to take on the colour of the cuttle bone, which in the case of the strawberry one, it's pink! I keep telling Skyla that she is too young to start wearing blush on her head. :p

[Mavish]

well i go to nature pet center, VERY good pet store near me. They have some flavoured ones but i didn't buy them. What i did is scrape it on the seeds, and she eats it...thanks Joey :).

maybe later on she'll get curious and try it?

[Amy]

She will proberly, put it somewhere where she can see it easily.

[Mistyoriline]

Yea well vanella is good for Skyla...maybe cocanut

[Rie]

What about shell grit? Gus is mad on it, he has none in his cage so he has a little munch on the cuttlebone when he wants, but the whole floor of his gym is covered in it. he loves wandering around the floor haning a pick and forage. it also makes cleanup easier, just throw it away and no poo stuck to the floor.

[Bea]

Grit can actually cause health problems for your budgies. As they dehull their seeds before eating them they don't need the grit to help grind the tough bits.

[Amy]

Mmm, Budgiekin made an article on that...