Is Your Parrot REALLY Eating A Good Diet?

[Jwhear]

I do agree with some of your points Mandi and I do eat a lot of fruit also, but I eat a lot of veggies as well. I don't think that it has made me lose respect for her though. This is an on going debate about birds diets. Basically I feed them everything that I eat that is natural and does not contain added chemicals or sugars. I however have birds that are mainly on a seed and sometime pellet diet because they will not eat anything else. I do offer them all Fresh foods every day, most just chose not to eat it, but all I can do is offer.

Thanks for the article it was very informative.

[Ashling]

As a kid I always liked vegies... is that weird? I thought they tasted goood ^_^
Wait a sec... apart from nectar mix, fruit makes up most of Ash's diet... no nutritional value? What is a lorikeet meant to eat!? lol

[magdalena]

I took her if it tastes bad it must be good for you sentence as the joke it seemed intended. You do have some great points though Mandi.

[chapala]

Re the fruit question, I do feed my birds about 10% of the diet daily in nutritious fruits -very rarely apple and grape, but most often berries, mango, papaya, cantaloupe, passion fruit. Fruits do provide valuable nutrients, but remember that in general our cultivated fruits are much sweeter than native fruits that would be eaten by wild birds. Fruit has been bred by humans for umpteen generations to have sweeter flavors, and wild fruit often is much tarter. Therefore the fruit we have available is higher in sugar - that's why I never feed dried fruit to my birds - extremely high sugar contents!

A couple of examples of total sugar contents: Raw apricots 9.24%, dried 53.44%, Plums, raw 9.92%, dried (prunes) 38.13%, red or green seedless grapes 15.48%, raisins (dried seedless grapes) 59.19%.

I also don't believe that animals do choose a healthy diet based on some innate knowledge of what is good for them and what nutrients are needed, just as many people have terrible diets and choose to eat junk food. If I were to put out sunflower seed and nuts for my bigger birds (Grey and Macaw) plus a separate bowl or bowls of vegetables, grains, fruits, legumes, guess which one they would gorge on? Nuts and sunflower seeds, very high fat, deficient in certain very important nutrients, leading to malnutrition and obesity.

That's why I feed the diet from Feeding Feathers (Yahoo) forum, Shauna's Mash diet that has all the vegetables run through a food processor. I also put the legume sprouts in the processor too because of a certain Parrotlet that won't eat them otherwise :) The Mash diet encourages birds to eat everything, getting a well-rounded, varied diet. Doesn't help much to offer a good diet in chunks, and the bird picks out a few favorites and leaves the rest.

[SouthAmericanFever]

Chapala, I'm speaking specifically of natural foods in an animal's natural habitat.

For humans, this means nothing cooked, nothing dehydrated, nothing messed with. Definitely true of birds too. If that's the case, great apes (humans), most parrots, and many other animals are very drawn to whole fruit. Most birds wouldn't find dried fruit, sunflower seeds, sprouted grains or legumes, or junk food in their natural habitat. (They're not native to the same areas or not found naturally at all.) You can't argue they don't eat the most proper diet in the wild, and they do eat fruit. What would my birds find in the rainforest that is like legumes or grains? (I would really like to know if anyone has insights. BESIDES the birds that eat CULTIVATED grains, because they are not native to where the birds evolved and therefore NOT part of their natural diet.) Much less meat (specifically cooked) besides insects, or potatoes (they don't dig--not my species), or etc, etc....

Fruits are one of the least changed foods from the wild-- you will find most of them in the wild! Even when sizes, shapes, flavors [cannot be changed drastically] and colors have changed, nutrients (macro and micro) haven't much at all. The sweetness of fruits depends on how ripe they are. They do eat unripe fruits often, which are less sweet but also toxic. (This is the reason, they say, my species spend so much time eating cliffs--to undo the effects of eating unripe fruit.) Depleted soil does not affect fruit trees nearly as much as other crops whose nutritional value actually is compromised.

Also, who is to say your birds would become obese if they were fed high fat but were also allowed to fly as much as they should according to their physiology? Particularly Macaws. As for malnutrition, anti-nutrients are just as bad as lack-of-nutrients. For instance, because of the sulfur/protein in milk, it takes more calcium to digest it than the milk contains. Milk actually CAUSES osteoporosis. Things like this happen with many foods people eat! Since the effects of anti-nutrients have not been studied in parrots (because different animals thrive on different diets), I can only do the best I can. My conjecture is that if a food is not whole, raw, local (to where the animal evolved), and still attractive, it is not a proper food for that animal.

Dehydrating a fruit doesn't increase the sugar content PER CALORIE. It does PER GRAM simply because there are significantly less grams of water left. This is bad, agreed, because the water in foods is the best, cleanest source of water there is. Just sayin', it's not really higher in sugar if it's dehydrated, it's just lower in water. The ratios of sugar per calorie stay the same. It's easier to overeat on dehydrated foods, though. And if a food is packaged (by nature) with water, it should be eaten with that water.

[chapala]

Since we can't possibly reproduce the native diets of the parrots we have in captivity - the native vegetation does not exist where most of us live - we need to provide carbohydrates, proteins, fats, vitamins, minerals and other nutritients in amounts considered appropriate for the various species, based on what we know at this time. Hopefully more research will be done on nutritional requirements for parrots, and we can refine the diets to feed them as well as possible. In the meantime, we know they need some complete protein which is in almost all cases in the wild provided by plant proteins, not animal protein. They need complex carbohydrates (not simple carbs from refined foods). They need high beta carotene foods, and minerals mostly supplied by a varied diet that includes lots of vegetables and a little fruit. Some species need more fat (Macaws for example) and others need much less fat (Amazons, Parrotlets, Cockatiels, Budgies as examples). Too much dietary fat especially for certain species leads to far too many cases of Fatty Liver Disease. Yes, a wild bird that flies many miles a day might be able to eat more fat than a captive bird, even if that bird is flighted. Certainly they would need more energy and would eat more carbohydrates. It's very unlikely that a flighted bird in our homes would ever fly as much as a wild parrot does.

Some species need higher protein levels (Macaws again and breeding birds), some need much lower protein levels (Pionus comes to mind). Some can tolerate higher levels of synthetic Vitamin A in some pellets and other fortified foods if people choose to feed those, and other species (such as Cockatiels) have a lower tolerance and exhibit health problems at certain levels of supplementation. So while there is some knowledge of parrot nutrition now which for me and others leans towards providing a varied diet of whole, natural foods, with more research we hopefully will learn more and more. Being flexible and staying abreast of new information helps to keep us current with the latest findings.

Not sure what your point is about dried fruit - you say "It's easier to overeat on dehydrated foods, though". That was my point. Birds (and people!) can eat far more dried apricots or other dried fruits than in the fresh form that has a high water content, and the sugar content of the dried fruit does become a concern because of the amount consumed. Many parrot mixes of various kinds have a fair amount of dried fruit included. My preference is to feed strictly fresh fruit, as part of a healthy, varied diet.

I'm also not sure what you mean by your emphasis on fruit. Fruit of course has nutrients, some types of fruit more than others, but two major nutrients it is lacking are protein and Calcium. It's necessary to have a varied diet to cover the nutritional bases, but maybe you believe that also. It just was hard for me to understand from what you said.

[SouthAmericanFever]

I know I can't feed them exactly what they would eat in the wild, my point is just getting as close as possible. Surely we don't know exactly what is closest, but we do know some things that are bad. I think that's the main thing we disagree on.

With calcium, again, anti-nutrients play a bigger role than "getting enough". Plenty of people who drink milk get the RDA of calcium... yet, in third world countries where they don't drink milk, and get less than half of the "RDA", osteoporosis is unheard of. Fruits may not get you the RDA but they will leave you with plenty of calcium to use instead of flush.

Grains have been linked to so many health problems in humans that I do not believe they are healthy. Some birds are granivorous but as far as I know, mine are not. Grains are healthier than some alternatives (thus the "health benefits" of grains), because of their fiber and carbohydrate content (high = good); but if an animal is not built to eat them they have very damaging effects. Allergy issues, psychological problems, many if not most gastrointestinal problems, and fatigue are linked to grain consumption.

I believe what you say about giving them the macronutrients (protein, fat, carbohydrates) in the ratios they need. But protein from a fruit (yes, there is protein in fruit; not much but it's not devoid--there is fat also) is different than protein from a [toxic when raw] legume. Micronutrients (vitamins and minerals) are much more concentrated in raw plant foods (particularly fruits and greens) than cooked [anything] as well. This leads us back to raw fruit.

Protein is more harmful in large doses than in small ones. Have you ever heard of a bird with a protein deficiency? Humans don't get protein deficiencies unless they are literally starving or there is some reason their body doesn't absorb it right. (Even strict fruitarians do not have protein deficiencies if they eat the proper amount of calories from fruit.) Have you heard of a bird with kidney problems, cancer, heart disease (not often known until too late), egg binding or other calcium problems? These can all be traced back to excessive protein.

I do not believe in "covering my bases" nutritionally. I would not feed an elephant meat, milk, eggs, grass, fruit and wheat in order to "cover my bases" and hope it gets what it needs. It would die more surely than if I only fed it one type of species appropriate food item. NO animal is built to eat such a wide range of "food" that humans routinely eat and inflict upon other animals. They all have a niche, a few select foods they naturally eat.

I know you didn't say fruit increases per calorie, but you also didn't say it was the decrease in water that brought about the "increase" in sugar. Even if you know what you meant, I'm sure at least a few other people reading needed clarification. For what it's worth, the decrease in water also concentrates the nutrients. Dried fruit is not as bad as some other things.

I know what I say about nutrition will label me as crazy... even here, amongst crazy bird-loving people.