Manufactured Food vs Fresh

[Camalot]

Hello Everyone Things are going fine with our almost three month old Cody! I am learning new things everyday. Do have a question about feeding. I have been reading online at: http://www.lafeber.com/Docs-Book/default.asp about type of foods to give. I do realize that this Dr. Lafeber is in the business of "selling" but I am wondering if he is correct when he says in his online book "Birds are best off eating 80% of their diet as a manufactured balanced food, and only 15-20% as treats, bakery goods, cereals, nuts, fruits, greens, vegetables, meat, fish or dairy products." Currently I have been feeding Cody Tropikeet and Nutri berries as well as Fresh Veggies and Fruits. The fresh is of course what the bird wants the most. But I don't want to give him too much fresh if it is not that good for him. Thanks for any help you can give me.

[Ed Loschi]

Hey,

I recently went on vacation and for the first time I didn't take my fids. Instead I put them into birdy boarding (or bird camp) for 10 days. The facility they went to was excellant; it is a vet clinic and one of the vets is avian certified and a respected breeder.

When I dropped off the fids I also bought a small 1 lb package of Harrisons that the clinic had for sale and brought a bag of fruits and veggies, enough for the 10 days...or so I thought.

Now I have tried at least 5 different brands of pellets on my Irns over the past 5 years and most all that pellet got tossed out to the local ducks and geese, they liked it ok. So I pretty much had given up on getting my fids on pellets and figured it was fruits, veggies, seeds and nuts for the rest of time.

Well the vet attendant gave all the fruits up to the the birds by the 4th day of bird camp and so they only had the Harrisons for the rest of their camping vacation. Now you're saying that they were forced to eat it--well maybe, but now when I fill up their dry food dish with the Harrisons they instantly start eating it.

So that is my personal testimony. Harrisons has a good avian product line. We use the ADULT LIFETIME COARSE and I go by the Harrisons feeding directions. The fids like it and they look fit and plump and their molt came in really nice. I'm kind of lucky because the vet clinic carries it and they only have the price marked up a dollar or two more than the online sale price.

Here is the Harrisons a link for you to check: http://www.harrisonsbirdfoods.com

Regards, Ed

PS Honest to God I don't work for Harrisons.

[kyria]

not too much dairy, meat or bakery products .. but they can never have too much fresh fruit and vegi's. I think 80% of their diet should be fresh foods and the other pellets or seed.

[Camalot]

Thanks Kyria I thought that it seemed right that 80% should be fresh and 20% pellets or seed. But I've never owned a "parrot" before and I sure don't want to do the wrong thing. Sure can get confusing when so many people, even Doctors say different things.

[kyria]

Just good to hear you are listening and questioning and investigating for the well being of your birds

[Jim]

Well, I have two cents siiting next to the computer here. Might as well throw them in...

First, Angie makes a good point. A bird who is owned by someone who's willing to think about and investigate proper nutrition has a huge advantage when it comes to living a long and healthy life. The book "Feeding Your Pet Bird" by Dr. Petra Burgmann is a good place to look for a nuts and bolts discussion of parrot nutrition.

Birds, like all other animals, require protein, fat, vitamins, minerals, etc., in certain ratios. It is very likely that the optimal ratios of these nutrients vary not only from species to species but also within species when you consider the nutrient requirements for young vs. older birds, breeding vs. non-breeding, birds that are molting, etc.

One thing to remember is that the optimal nutritional requirements for parrots are not very well understood, certainly not when compared to what is known about dogs, cats, horses and most food animals. Unless some eccentric bird owner wins the lottery and starts funding research at the the University of Tennessee and UC Davis vet schools we are probably never going to have as much evidence as we'd like about the precise nutritional requirements of a bunch of different species of parrots.

All that said, there does appear to be a very, very general consensus about what constitutes a "good enough" approach to nutrition for the maintenace most species of parrots - protein in the range of 11-15% of the diet, fat between 4-7% of the diet, etc. Once you have a picture of what this "good enough" mixture of nutrients is you can ask yourself something like "My bird will eat about three teaspoons of solid matter a day. How can I fill three teaspoons with 2 grams of protein, 1 gram of fat fat, 200 IU's of vitamin A?" and so on. My belief is that this can certainly be done using fresh foods if one wants to put the work into a.) figuring out the nutrient contents of a variety of foods b.) figuring out how to get the bird to eat the selected foods in the proper amouns and c.) slicing up a bunch of broccoli and other yucky vegetables. I personally would rather not spend my time doing this and feed my birds pellets not because I think there's something magical about them that can't otherwise be duplicated but because they afford me the easiest way to provide proper nutrition to my birds given the imperfect understanding of what proper nutrition is for parrots.

[giantfoot_truck]

Well I feed mine with both mixed seed and fresh food daily. The fresh food that I give to my IRN are tomatoes, corn, bread, mustard greens, lettuce, bananas, orange, apple, and pear.
My IRN's favourite among all these foods are the sun flower seed.

[Elizabeth]

i go by this; they are omnivores like us so they eat everything we do (except junk foods, coffee, too much dairy etc). And so i give them all human foods (vegetarian and some chicken bones occasionally). And their pellets.

I don't think in this day and age seed or pellets are a huge dietary requirement. If you feed a vegetarian diet (lentils, eggs, wholegrain rice, cous cous etc) they will eb healthy.

My bird gets this and vegies every day and hardly touches his bird food. He's beautiful.

I offer seed and SUNFLOWER but he DOES NOT EVEN bother eating the sunflower seeds at all. Just not interested!

[Camalot]

Thanks everyone for your comments! I tried giving Cody some pellets that a friend gave me and he barely even touched them. I even tried not giving him much of any other food all day and no go. He just wouldn't eat them.
But I am glad to hear that if I give him plenty of fruits and veggies and "people" food along with some other bird "treats" that it should be OK.

[Elizabeth]

you're welcome.

My IRN will not eat pellets or seeds AT ALL! Occasionally he will taste them but he fills up on veggies, fruit and a bean and wholegrain mix.

I seriously would not worry as if he is eating a balanced meal like us humans he doesn't need much pellets or seed.

[kyria]

It is a long and very careful process moving a bird to pellet and should be taken seriously and religiously if you are going to do this and be successful.

I personally feed my fids with an abundance of all fresh foods morning and night, and I do mean abundance, some doesn't get eaten, but they get such a variety my friends and family say they would rather the bird bowl than the dinner i prepared for the family... lol.

I also personally believe that seed is not such a bad thing for my fids. I take a natural and wholistic approach to alot of my life and my fids and kids, in that I try to keep things as natural as possible in this day and age. As a result I have kids that eat pumpkin, broccoli, brussell sprouts and salads etc.with great hunger and relish and always have, my children surprise people with their lack of fuss when it comes to their likes and dislikes, they don't really have a dislike for anything and are always willing to try anything. But my point here (and my belief is) that hook billed birds naturally hull seeds, therefore they are meant to eat them, so I feed them (secondary of course) and infact they choose them secondary to seed when I place their meals in their cages.

Just me and my way

[giantfoot_truck]

It depend on what their owner feed them daily. Some bird will hardly accept any kind of fresh food other than seeds/pellets, this is because their owner feed them only with seeds/pellets throughout their lives....
And they also have their own personal taste in food.