Parrot food

What do you feed your parrots?  We’ve got 6 parrots of varying styles and sizes—an African Grey, a Goffin’s cockatoo, a peach-fronted conure, a dusky conure, a cherry-headed conure, and a white-capped Pionus.  For some reason our birds have a tendency towards liver problems, with our Pacific parrotlet dying from liver disease in 2004, and our Pionus recently diagnosed with an enlarged liver and high cholesterol.  The peach-fronted conure is also prone to beak overgrowth, so I’m watching his health as well.  All these liver problems are surprising, as we’ve never been ones to just toss our parrots a handful of sunflower seeds and call it “dinner”.  All our birds are pellet eaters—most were raised as pellet-eaters from fid-dom—and while they’ve always been fed supplemental seed, just a small amount has had an adverse affect.  When Pepe the Pionus was diagnosed with skyrocketing cholesterol in November, I took it as an opportunity to wean all the birds off seed.  Now they receive a pellet and fresh food mix every day, rather than a pellet/seed/fresh food mix.  In the afternoons they’re given a “seed snack”, but it amounts to only about a tablespoon of parrot seed mix.

I’ve maintained the usual fresh food routine, as the vet says it sounds healthy and the birds all seem to enjoy it.  Every morning I mix up half a cup of instant brown rice, half a cup of instant white rice, about two tablespoons of some sort of small pasta, and half a cup of uncooked (but soaked) beans, and cook in the microwave for 5 minutes until the water is absorbed.  I then add a half-pound of frozen veggie mix (lima beans, corn, carrots, peas), about a half cup of greens (usually collard greens), and some sort of fruit (often raspberries or blueberries, but sometimes mango or even banana).  I then heat the entire mix in the microwave again, not really to “cook” it, but just to thaw and warm it.  The birds are served a quarter-cup of pelleted food, topped with the warm fresh mix.  I’ve also been sprinkling the mixture with Prime vitamins, as they seem to enjoy the taste.  Total prep time, including “serving”, is usually about 20 minutes.  It’s a good opportunity for me to visit with the birds, check their overall health, see who’s got an appetite, etc.  I’ve noticed that Pepe’s beak overgrowth has really slowed down, so hopefully we’re on the right track with this diet.

Posted by Leigh-Ann on 01/30 at 02:58 PM

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