Pellet size changes everything: what an Amazon parrot study reveals about foraging
Published by Planète Pets · managing editor: Clément Lacaille · how our guides are written
Our foraging ideas for Amazon parrots recommend hiding food rather than serving it in a bowl. A behavioral study goes further: without hiding anything at all, simply changing the size of the pellets on offer is enough to radically change how much time a bird spends searching for its food.
Contents · 5 sections
A choice between standard and oversized pellets
Published in 2010 by Rozek, Danner, Stucky and Millam in the journal Applied Animal Behaviour Science, this study offered captive orange-winged Amazon parrots (Amazona amazonica) a choice between standard-size and oversized pellets, nutritionally identical (see the study, doi 10.1016/j.applanim.2010.03.001). The researchers also tracked use of a wooden-cube foraging device once the oversized-pellet option was taken away.
Seven times more oversized pellets retrieved, and real effort accepted
The Amazon parrots retrieved oversized pellets about seven times more often than standard pellets, even though their nutritional value is equivalent. More striking still, the birds accepted lifting weights over 100 grams to reach the oversized pellets, even while standard pellets sat freely available right next to them. And when the oversized-pellet option was removed, use of the wooden foraging cube jumped 50-fold: deprived of their preferred, easy-to-handle pellet, the birds shifted heavily toward the effortful search the cube represents.
What this changes about pellet choice
This result complicates the common assumption that adding a foraging toy next to a full bowl is enough to drive food-searching behavior: an especially attractive, easy-to-access food (here, the oversized pellet) can instead reduce use of a foraging device by offering a more efficient shortcut. Pellet size and presentation are therefore an enrichment lever in their own right, not just a nutritional detail covered in our article on balanced feeding for Amazon parrots.
In practice
If your Amazon parrot or a similar large parrot has free access to oversized pellets, don't expect a standard foraging toy to immediately take over: alternate formats, or reserve oversized pellets for specific times so that other days leave room for real search effort through a foraging device. The rest of our enrichment ideas are under bird toys and enrichment.
Frequently asked questions
Should oversized pellets always be the default choice?
Not necessarily for every species or beak: the study covers the orange-winged Amazon parrot, a medium-to-large parrot; pellet size still needs to match the beak strength of the species in question.
Does a foraging device become pointless once oversized pellets are offered?
No: the study instead points to alternating formats so the bird keeps engaging with the device, rather than always leaving the easiest option freely available alongside it.
See it in the Planète Pets shop: Woven palm leaf foraging toy for parrots (€18.90) · the whole shop
This guide is part of Planète Pets’s Birds universe. Our advice is general in nature: for any health concern, your veterinarian remains the only reference.