PLANNED PARROTHOOD'S RECOMMENDED* DIET
FOR SMALL TO LARGE HOOKBILL PARROTS

My dry food diet consists of a good clean seed mix (no wild bird food), hulled oats, some pellets, Zupreem monkey biscuit, spray millet, and large mixed nuts. Even the smaller birds get halved walnuts and almonds. Most species are grain eaters in the wild, so should be offered different types of seed. It is a myth that seed is more fattening than pellets. It is also a myth that sunflower seed is fattier than safflower seed. Another bi-weekly treat that I give the birds are Mini Ritz Bits with peanut butter. They love that treat. I supplement the cockatiels with Budgimine, especially when they're on eggs. Most of my cockatoos, greys, and Senegals like spray millet, both the regular and the mega millet, since they are basically grain eaters in the wild. Click here for observations from an Australian breeder.

Fresh foods consist of well scrubbed fruits and veggies such as: grapes, bananas, apples, carrots (very important), melon, chicory (sometimes called curly endive - real curly dark greens, slightly bitter, birds love it), swiss chard, dandelion, green beans, pod peas, grapefruit, oranges, cranberries, pomegranates, pears, sweet potatoes (cooked), squash (all varieties cooked), corn on the cob, frozen corn, frozen mixed veggies, blueberries, peppers, nectarines, cucumbers, and other unlisted produce that I've tried. They receive fresh produce daily.

Once or twice a week, I make their feast of cooked brown rice, shredded cheddar cheese (please do NOT offer cheese or dairy products too often as the casseine from such are not always readily digested and can cause impaction problems), frozen mixed veggies (heated), extra frozen corn (heated), chicory, squash, and 1 or 2 fruits and veggies in season.

I don't use a bean mix because I feel that the birds receive enough protein from the Zupreem biscuits and the seed mix biscuits and pellets. Bean preparations also spoil rapidly in warm weather. Most parrots don't require a high percentage of protein. Too much protein can have adverse irreversible effects such as gout and renal failure.

Every other day I supplement with a concentrated fine powder vitamin that will even adhere to seed for those stubborn seed eating only birds. This vitamin contains all of the necessary vitamins, minerals, and amino acids that most birds require. For the 15 years or so that I've been using this, my birds are lustrous with a beautiful irridescence and have given me very healthy babies. I alternate the vitamins with the Phoenix Unlimited Acidophilus preparation. This helps to keep the proper PH of the digestive tract, thus making it hard for any gram negative bacterial infections to occur.

I do add a small amount of natural pellets (with no ethoxyquin) to their seed mix for variety. Zupreem makes food grade, quality controlled pellets for assurance of consistency of ingredients.

For single bird owners or owners of just a few birds, some table food in moderation can be given to the birds. Common sense applies here. Absolutely NO chocolate  (very toxic), coffee, alcohol, avocado, dill, greasy foods, fatty foods, salty foods, or foods that are heavily supplemented with preservatives such as hot dogs. Pizza or cooked pasta is a good treat for them once in a while.

If you can afford to buy organic produce, the birds seem to know the difference and will more readily accept that.

Do not offer to the touch cooked foods. Birds' crops are very delicate and can burn easily.

 DO NOT PUT FAT BIRDS ON ALL PELLETED DIET: Reason: They may be getting too much of certain vitamins in every bite that will remain in their fatty tissue possibly causing toxemia. Fat birds should be housed in larger cages so that they can get more exercise. There is also a very good vitamin/enzyme supplement called Flight Plan to help reduce weight in portly parrots.

I do not believe in a total pelleted diet for more than one reason:

1. Birds like to crack seed and play with their food. A total pelleted diet deprives them of this fun and instinctual work to get at their food.
2. Seed and nuts are *live* foods with live nutrients (amino acids and phytonutrients), so long as you get good clean sproutable seed and fresh nuts.
3. I'm not sold on the quality control of vitamins, minerals and amino acids in any certain pelleted diets. There have been reports of deaths and debilitation (see a letter from a breeder) due to either overdumps or lack of certain vitamins. Please check with the manufacturers of your pellets about how often QC checks are done and how reliable they are. Also check with them in regard to heat sensitive vitamins and how their percentages are maintained after processing.
4. Pellets usually contain preservatives, some of which can be harmful to the bird's health (ethoxyquin is one).
5. Pellets may be too high in protein for most birds. Since most birds are so long lived, this could possibly result in gout or other ailments. (see a letter from a breeder)
6. A link between zinc poisoning in some birds and pelleted diets is highly suspect.
7. I can't stand the smell of the water that some of my "dunking" birds plop them in. Some pellets, when soaked, generate a terrible chemical odor.

1. Don't buy seed that has been sprayed with vitamins or adulterated in any way by vitamin processing. It can become rancid quickly. The shelf life on it may have already expired by the time you get it home. It's usefulness in vitamin/mineral supplementation is debated since the birds discard the shells. It may also destroy the good nutrients in the seed.
2. DON'T EVER REFRIGERATE SEED to keep it longer!!! Freeze it if you must. Just keeping it in a plain brown bag or breathable poly bag should be a sufficient means of storage in most climates. Larvae is healthier than mold! Invisible mold will grow in a matter of a day or so in the refrig.

Should you have any questions regarding diet and my thoughts regarding such, please feel free to contact me by e-mail. I'd like to hear your comments. If you have something that I feel others may benefit from regarding avian diets, please send for possible inclusion to this page. Perhaps you breed certain species that have special requirements. I'd be happy to have your input on this page.

(Reprinted with permission from the author) "The picture is very different for smaller birds. I can't tell you how many young, beautiful birds have died from being on a pelleted diet, but I know that I seriously changed my thinking when my own birds started passing away one after another.

I was gung-ho on pellets, and fed 90% pellets to my birds. I kept a closed aviary. I did all the check ups, I cleaned, I disinfected. My budgies and cockatiels dropped like flies when they got much past five. It was awful and painful and quite possibly one of the worst and most disturbing things I've ever experienced. You know who managed to survive? All the stubborn little birdies who wouldn't eat the pellets.

The latest research indicates that pellets may contain higher protein levels than are necessary for small birds. Additionally, since every formulation is different, one runs the risk of consistently over- or under-supplementing various vitamins, which also causes long term health effects. Organic pellets may have storage problems that affect the quality and availability of the nutrients therein. There is absolutely nothing out there that convinces me that the chicken formula based pellets we now have are the best things for my birds to eat, no matter who makes them or how.

While I recognize the value of pellets, I strongly believe that high amounts of one brand of pellet is a death sentence for a small bird. I will never do that again, no matter how much more convenient it might be or how many reassurances any manufacturer might provide. I feel I have a moral obligation to feed fresh natural foods as well as mixed pellets in order to keep my small birds healthy. I have already experienced the slow, agonizing deaths of too many birds from gout, kidney failure, liver failure, and tumors to ever trust any single pellet again, with or without artificial additives. Even with the larger birds, I think it is important to keep pellet consumption down to 50-60%. I'd rather spend my time in the nutrition section of the library than in the bird's graveyard.

In another 20 years or so, it may be that pellets are safer and more species- specific. Until then, I'm gonna stick to veggies, seeds, and mixed pellets."

One of the advantages of Australian aviculturalists is that we see parrots all the time feeding in the wild, and many studies have been done on their feeding habits. Ignoring specialised birds such as lorikeets, Eclectus (mainly fruit) and some rare tropical rainforest birds, almost all of our wild parrots feed on seed as their dominant food source. Originally of course it would have been the seed of our native grasses, shrubs and trees, but parrots are very adaptable, and many species are happily eating seeds from introduced plants, including unfortunately grain crops. It is this latter adaptation of course which leads to conflict with farmers and the shooting of many galahs, SC2's and corellas. I might add that one of their favourite crops is sunflower!

as they would get through a normal pet budgie seed mix. I have often watched flocks of budgies in Central Australia (some flocks with thousands of birds) industriously picking away on the fallen seed (ie fully ripe) on the ground from native grasses and ignoring the fresh green seed on the plant above their heads.

Perhaps for this reason Australian aviculturalists have never been caught up by the pellet propaganda. As I said in the previous post, I doubt that 1 in a 1000 aviculturalists here would feed a pellet based diet. Some will supplement seed with a high protein pellet (usually Roudybush) during breeding season, but even they are a very small minority.

My own feeding methods would be typical. I feed almost all my birds, from lovebirds to corellas and SC2's a small parrot mix, typically with about 40% canary seed, 20% white millet, 20% Japanese millett, 15% panicum, and 5% sunflower, which gives a fat content of about 5.4%. Some variation is made when breeding season is around and chicks are in the nest - usually more sunflower. In addition they get a wide range of fresh fruit and veggies, as well as green grass seed, dandelion, milk thistle (our Australian milk thistle is a different species to the USA one), flowers and leaves from eucalypts, acacia and grevillea, and chickweed. I also give some multigrain bread as well.

I also am a BIG believer in sprouted seed, and will give it for much of the year. At this time (late autumn here) I only give it once or twice a week to my breeders, but by mid June I start to increase the amount and frequency, and by mid July, the start of our breeding season in outside aviaries, they get it every day. Once babies are hatching they get unlimited amounts of sprouted seed. My mix for sprouting includes plenty of sunflower, mung beans, sorghum, wheat, and barley. Birds such as budgies and tiels that breed all year round outside will get sprouted seed as breeding demands. My pet birds get sprouted seed most days but not in large amounts - maybe a dessert spoon each for a tiel size bird. Hand fed babies are weaned onto sprouted seed as their first food, along with millet sprays. The range of fruit and veggies follows soon after.

My reason for varying the sprouted seed intake is to mimic the seasonal cycles. In autumn and early winter the wild food sources are often at their poorest, and wild birds are surviving on a very low protein diet, but by mid to late winter when wild breeding is getting underway the food sources ar eimproving in quality, and the protein intake of the wild birds is increasing. By mimicking this variation in the aviary birds, using sprouted seed as the main protein source, we hope to encourage the same stimulus into breeding condition that the wild parrots get. Seems to work!

Some breeders go as far as only giving seed from mid April to mid June, cutting out all fruit and veggies, but my feeling is that the birds need their vitamin intake all year, not just at breeding time, so I give my birds their goodies almost every day. At this time of year I might miss an odd day with fresh food, but 6 days out of 7 they get their goodies, albeit in smaller quantities than they will in a month's time.

So, that is diet for Parrots, Australian style.

cheers,

Mike Owen, Queensland