by Pajarita » Wed Dec 28, 2016 11:39 am
Well, conures should never be free-fed any sort of protein food because their natural diet is mostly fruits so a change in her diet would be very beneficial to her both in the short and the long term. But, I am afraid that I don't agree with Michael's food management method... I understand why he does it but a pet bird is not a working bird and I don't agree with depriving any animal of food unless there is a medical reason for it. Birds metabolisms are so fast that avian vets don't ever make a bird fast before a blood test or even surgery so keeping them hungry is really not healthy for them. It's unnecessarily stressful... The truth is that this is a problem that is easily solved to everybody's satisfaction by free-feeding a low protein food and reserving the high protein for dinner (which, for a sun conure, should never be really 'high' protein, anyway), saving the highest value item to be used only as rewards for training. This way, the bird is always more than happy to work for their favorite treat and, at the same time, they never go hungry.