Need Help and Advice

[Tiffany and Mitcheri]

Hey all,
I am new to this site and found it because I need some help and advice. I am owned buy 4 parakeets and 2 cockatails, plus quite a few other pets but since this is a bird site i'll keep it short. Recently I was given a Channel-billed Toucan, which I took in because this bird was in a very bad situation. Too small of a cage, one side of his wings clipped and no clean water, also no proper food too be seen of, just some rice in his dish, which I know isn't part of their diet. I know a bit about how to care for them but any new information would be helpful. A new much larger cage is in the works and we have already started the proper diet. I live in the tropics so a pellet isn't available to me here but I have all his fruit available to me. How will he do without the pelleted food? What can I add to his diet to help him along? Thanks to all for your help.

[catschair]

I don't know about toucans, but I am sure one of our members will be along soon to help. Welcome to you and your crew --we would love to hear (and see -- we love pictures) more about all of them.

[birdsnreps]

where are you that you cant find softbill pellets? you should be able to have a bag shipped to you, im sure mazuri or zupreem can ship to other countries besides the US. i feed my hornbill pellets in addition to her fruit, and everyone i know that has these types of softbills uses pellets.

do not feed your toucan citrus fruits, including oranges, lemons, limes and pineapple, these are thought to lead to iron storage disease, which is fatal. a good base diet for a toucan is soaked softbill pellets (do not give them hard pellets, their digestive systems cannot handle alot of hard stuff), papaya, cooked sweet potatoe, grapes, blueberries, and banana. every day, you can add a few chunks of some other types of fruits. any kind of berry is good, strawberries and rasberries seem to be favorites. they can eat apple, peaches, plums, etc....but do not give the toucan any pits or fruit seeds.

[Tiffany and Mitcheri]

I live in Trinidad and Tobago and really hadn't thought about shipping a bag here as the cost would be tremendous. The zoo here doesn't even use pellets(I am not saying that the zoo here is right), only fruit. I had read somewhere that you can substitute certain types of dog chow for the protein that they need, is that true? Thanks for the info, and due to the fact that I live in the country where toucans are found the fruit selection is really good, no berries here though unless I buy frozen blueberries. Strawberries I can get but they are really substandard and wouldn't eat them myself let unlone my toucan, unless you think that it would still be good for him. Rasberries just aren't available here frozen or fresh. We do have plenty of papaya, mango, grapes and banana readily avaible. Really though, thanks for your help, anymore help would be appreciated as I am trying to do the best for this bird as I can since it had such a bad start in life.

[birdlady49]

Here is one of the few website links about channel bills that talks about diet: Channel-billed Toucan at the Wildlife Park

I'm not sure pellets would be a good idea for toucans, unless they're made for toucans and the channel bills specifically.

I don't recommend the dog food for toucans or any birds. The ratio of ingredients is not correct for birds.

[Tiffany and Mitcheri]

Thank you and I did check out the site, every bit of info helps. I really don't think the dog food is a great idea either but wanted to see what truth their is in it. I will post some pictures of all my guys when I get some time. Thanks again.

[birdsnreps]

dog good usually has too much protein for a toucan. the fruit that you mentioned is really good for toucans. it has been observed that wild toucans eat up to 100 different fruits or more, in their native lands. berries are good for them, and they love them, especially the blueberries. my hornbill (which pretty much gets the exact same diet as a toucan) LOVES blueberries,and grapes. those are her fave foods. i have to go out today and buy her some more fruit, she eats like a piggie, lol. but you can pretty much give your bird any type of fruit, except citrus fruits. cantalope and melons (remember, no seeds) are great choices as well, forgot to mention that in my previous post. just try to give your bird a variety, on top of the base diet. they should always have grapes, banana, sweet potatoe and papaya, and you just add diff fruits each day to those :)

[swanwillow]

umm, you may want to look up iron content of foods.. actually, I looked it up for you ;)
Mineral content of fruit and vegetables

Most citrus fruits are lower in iron than peaches, which is recommended fruits for lorikeets (which also have iron storage issues) Pineapple is the exemption. Grapes are known to be high in iron. So, anything below 0,3 is okay for iron-storage worry birds to eat.
Pineapple, raspberries, pumpkin, grapes, pineapple, strawberries, and tomato have high amounts of iron. Oranges, grapefruit, lime does not.

Its hard finding things for our special diet babies to eat though! Citrus isn't a popular fruit for them to eat, but I really don't know why-its NOT the iron content, I want to lean to the amount of acids in them.