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what food can and cant IRN eat?

Posted: Wed Jan 19, 2011 6:38 pm
by courty (:
i read so many things online about what to and what not to feed your IRN but they are usually not very helpful. Indy eats her seed mix and some fruit everyday, so far for the week shes been with me it has only been apples or grapes because on nearly every site i've read those were the two they love. Next time when i go shopping though i wanna give variety and see what other foods she likes.
what foods do you give your IRN?
and which foods DONT you give them?

Re: what food can and cant IRN eat?

Posted: Wed Jan 19, 2011 8:31 pm
by ellieelectrons
Hey Courty

There is a great thread on diet here:
http://www.indianringneck.com/forum/vie ... f=3&t=8078

I guess what you should know is that there are lots of conflicting opinions on appropriate diet for parrots. Before I bought my first IRN I did some research and read somewhere that pellets were a complete meal source for parrots... and if you give parrots pellets, that's all they need... and then I've met wonderful bird people who think that's malarky and birds should be fed a seed diet along with fruit and veg.... and then others who say that it's important that you give your birds sprouting seed regularly.

My beliefs (at the moment are):
- give them variety (but make sure you avoid anything poisonous)
- they should have fresh veges and fruit regularly as well as pellets and/or seed
- give them more veges than fruit as fruit is high in sugar
- reserve things that they love but aren't that good for them because they are too fatty (eg. sunflower seeds, nuts) or too sugary (eg. grapes) to small quantities or as treats.

My vet is a believer in pellets over seed (with a diet of fresh veges and fruit). Another interesting thing that my vet said is that birds will rarely overeat.... they will generally eat with they need.... however they will eat what they like first.... so he rarely finds overweight parrots but he is more likely to see malnourished birds who pig out on their "sometimes" foods and leave the foods that are good for them.

You may also be interested in this foraging thread that I started after our most recent trip the vet:
http://www.indianringneck.com/forum/vie ... =2&t=11701

BTW - where are you from in Qld? I hope you weren't flood affected.

Ellie.

Re: what food can and cant IRN eat?

Posted: Wed Jan 19, 2011 10:48 pm
by courty (:
oh wow thanks :D that helps a lot. yeah thats where i kind get confused i did so much reserach before i got Indy yet every site told you different things and then i get paranoid i'll feed her something and make her sick so i thought i should just ask and see what kind of responses i got.

up in cairns so we weren't affected we've just had a lot of rain cause its our wet season even though it's still so hot but we did have a couple flood warnings. but during christmas me and my family went on a road trip to gympie to see our family there and when it was time to go home it took three attempts and a whole day and a half of driving til we got home haha. even though the trip should only take 18-19 hours.

Re: what food can and cant IRN eat?

Posted: Fri Jul 22, 2016 12:59 am
by hannamarin
it's very information! now I know how to feed my IRN. http://skywritingservice.com/blog/healt ... -regularly is a blog of healthy that we should consume every day!

Re: what food can and cant IRN eat?

Posted: Sat Dec 03, 2022 8:27 pm
by Eaut1943
I feed them vegetables, pellets, good seed mix, mealworms and nuts. Especially fruits and vegetables should be offered regularly. We use regular frozen mixed vegetables that we defrost under cold water for about 10 to 30 seconds so it stays fresher in the cage throughout the day helping to complete the bird's diet.