Can Canaries Overeat? (Know The Facts)

As a new canary bird pet owner, you know that one of the most important aspect of keeping and caring for canaries is the feeding of the bird.

You need to get the right diet for your canaries that will supply all the necessary nutrients and vitamins that the bird needs to develop well and live longer.

But what about if you notice your canaries is always eating throughout the day, and it has gotten fat, what do you do?

Is it possible to overfeed a canary bird and how do you know your canary pet bird is full?

We shall discus about all these in this article.

Is it possible for canaries to overeat?

Yes, canaries can overeat and eat all throughout the day, and this is a sign that there is dietary imbalance, or you are not feeding your canary bird with a complete diet with all the required nutrients, and so your bird will continue to eat all day.

But if you are giving your canary bird the proper and complete diet it will not overeat as it knows the amount of food it needs to eat, and it knows its own body metabolism.

Even if you leave a large bowl of food in its cage canaries will not eat more than what it wants.

It is just like the popular saying that you can force or lead a horse to the stream, but you can’t force it to drink the water.

The same thing applies to the canary bird it knows when to stop eating.

But how about a fat canary bird is it not due to overeating that a canary bird becomes fat?

Far from the truth a fat canary bird is a sign or an indication that your bird is not eating a balanced diet.

Canaries can get fat if you are feeding them more of a particular diet or seed mix.

If you feed, you bird with more black seeds they will most likely get fat, and this is not good for the health of the bird as it will shorten the lifespan of the canary bird and overall health.

How to know if your canary bird is fat?

You cannot just look at your canary bird and because it appears big you then conclude it is fat.

The simple way to tell if your canary bird has grown fat is by looking at the neck line down to the chest area.

If you see a line from the neck down toward the belly area of the bird, then your canary bird is definitely fat.

How to know when your canary bird is full:

A canary bird will stop eating once it is full as it know how much to eat and when to stop even if you put in more than enough food inside the canary bird cage.

This is a natural thing for canaries, so you don’t have to panic or get worried especially if you notice that your bird just ate a little out of the food you placed inside its cage.

It may be already full and don’t want to eat anymore so be patient and once it gets hungry it will eat again.

However, it is important that you have a feeding schedule that you follow strictly to feed your canaries and also you should feed them with various kind of food not only the canary birds favourite food.

This makes it easy for your bird to eat a balanced and complete diet that is rich in nutrients.

How much food can a canary bird eat?

A canary bird can eat on average about ½ to ¼ of its own body weight. That means canaries should be given an equivalent of one teaspoon full of seeds per day.

However, if your canary bird is on pellets, you should simply follow the feeding proportion recommended by the pellets manufacturer and give the appropriate portion to your bird.

Canaries and other pet birds love eating seeds. However, you should not only give canaries seeds or pellets.

But as a general rule of thumb, seeds and nuts are fine for canaries as long as they don’t make up more than 10% of the total diet of the bird.

15%-20% of your canary birds diet should consists of fresh fruits and vegetables.

This allows the bird to get other required nutrients and vitamins it couldn’t get from eating seeds or pellets.

Recent studies have shown that a budgies that is on an all-seed diet will live an average of 5-7 years.

And budgies diet that consist of seeds and some other foods will live for about 10-12 years. A pet bird eating pellets alone can live to about 15-20 years.

And finally, a pet bird with properly balanced proportions of pellets, other fresh foods and seeds, particularly dark leafy vegetables and fresh fruits like apple, banana, pineapple, etc can live even longer for about 25 years.

The studies and statistics for canaries would be similar to this findings although canaries don’t live as long as parrots.

How often can you feed canary bird in a day?

You should feed your canaries at least 2-4 times a day with various types of seed mix, fruits and fresh vegetable, boiled eggs and many other foods that are beneficial to canaries.

Always provide fresh clean water in the cage for your canaries to drink from so as to stay hydrated especially in extreme weather conditions.

It is important that before you start feeding canaries at the start of the day you should always take out leftover foods away from the cage and then clean the cage.

After this is done then you can offer them their first meal for the day to enjoy.

It is important that you have and follow a diet and feeding routine for your canary bird as this helps you keep track of how well your bird is eating and also you are able to provide varieties of foods for your canaries this way.

Final thoughts:

As you should know by now that the most important part of keeping and caring for a canary bird is the feeding aspect of the bird.

In fact, it has been proven that a greater percent of all illness related problems in canaries are due to poor or improper feeding of the bird.

The right diet is crucial for a healthy life for your pet bird.

You don’t need to worry about canaries eating habits but rather focus on the quality of the food your canary eats this is more important.