What to Feed a Cockatiel: A Complete Diet Guide

A healthy cockatiel diet is built on formulated pellets, topped up with fresh vegetables, a little fruit, and only a small amount of seed. As a rough guide, aim for pellets to make up about 60 to 70 per cent of the diet, fresh vegetables and a little fruit around 20 to 30 per cent, and keep seed and millet to no more than about 10 per cent.

Cockatiels are small, seed-loving birds that will happily overeat seed if you let them, so the whole game is variety and portion control.

Cockatiels are one of the species most prone to obesity and fatty liver disease, and a seed-only diet is the usual cause. Seed is high in fat and low in vitamins, minerals and calcium, so a cockatiel that fills up on seed slowly becomes overweight and undernourished at the same time.

Formulated pellets fix this by giving a complete, balanced diet in every bite. Make pellets the base and treat seed as a topping. If your bird is on seed now, switch across gradually; our guide on bird pellets versus seed walks through how.

Fresh vegetables should be offered daily. Cockatiels do well on dark leafy greens like silverbeet, kale and bok choy, plus carrot, capsicum, broccoli, peas, corn, squash and cooked sweet potato. Grated or finely chopped works best for a small beak.

Fruit can be offered in small amounts as a treat, for example apple without seeds, berries, or a little banana or melon. Keep fruit to a minor part of the diet because of the sugar, and remove fresh food before it spoils.

Cockatiels love seed and adore spray millet, but both are fatty and easy to overdo. A small measured amount of a good seed mix is fine as part of the diet, and a little spray millet makes a great reward or foraging treat.

The trick is to measure it rather than leave a full bowl out, because a cockatiel will pick out the fattiest seeds and skip everything else. Offer seed as a set portion, not an all-day buffet.

Cockatiels need a reliable source of calcium, and a cuttlebone or mineral block clipped to the cage is the easy way to provide it. This matters even more for female cockatiels, which lay eggs readily even without a mate and can quickly run their calcium down.

If your hen is laying often, or you see any sign of weakness or a stuck egg, see an avian vet promptly. A pellet-based diet plus a cuttlebone covers most birds' calcium needs.

Some foods should never be offered. Keep these away from your cockatiel entirely: avocado, onion, garlic, chocolate, caffeine, alcohol, and the seeds or pits of fruit like apples and cherries. Also avoid salty, fried and heavily processed human foods.

When in doubt, leave it out. If you think your bird has eaten something toxic, contact an avian vet straight away.

Offer pellets as the constant base, a small serve of fresh vegetables each day, and a measured amount of seed. A healthy cockatiel usually weighs around 90 to 120 grams, and because the breed gains weight easily, a set of kitchen scales is one of the best tools you can own.

Weigh your bird now and then, and cut back seed and treats if the numbers creep up. Always keep clean, fresh water available and change it daily.

The most common mistakes are feeding only seed, leaving spray millet out all day, skipping vegetables, and offering grit, which cockatiels do not need and which can cause harm. Build the diet on pellets and fresh food, keep seed and millet measured, and provide a cuttlebone for calcium.

Cockatiels are also enthusiastic scatterers of seed and husks, so an enclosed feeder keeps the mess contained and makes it easy to see what your bird is actually eating. See the no-mess cockatiel feeder for how we do it.