Amazon diet

[Boman]

Hey all,

My wifes family has an amazon... Must be quite young considering his/her eyes are still black and she is quite small - about 7-8 inches. Is green all around and has blue patches on her head...small amounts of red to the inside of her eyes.(what sub species?) They don't know much about parrot care and or what the bird should be eating on a daily basis. They have been feeding her mango, banana, cooked rice. I mentioned to them that avocado chocolate caffeine and apple seeds are no good for the bird. Lately she has had nothing but urine (or so it looks Iike) when she goes poo. She was making some very unusual noises this morning. They sounded like here usual babbles but quite high in pitch.

I am with the family now and we are in Peru. There aren't many vet clinics here in Lima... So what can they introduce to her diet to keep her happy and have normal bowel movements?

Thanks a bunch!

Boman

[snakesentwined]

If you can get hold of a pellet diet, that would be fantastic - but if not, the variety seems to be the most natural thing, so try for lots of different veg (especially greens, peppers, carrots, peas etc) and a little less fruit perhaps; We ere recommended about 50% veg, 40% fruit and 10% grains.

That said, 7" sounds really small - is she *very* young? I wonder if she's weaned properly...?

[captwest]

Hey Boman,As far as what species, hard to say,Red-Lored is very common in your area, maybe a pic would help. Taxonomy i think is Amazona,autumnalis locally i think they're called"loro cariamarillo" there are alot of sub-species so id is difficult.As far as food,they'll eat about anything, another food to avoid is onoins, and any thing with added fat,salt,sugar, Junk Food. Maybe breakfast cereal, whole grain,no sugar, sweet potato,carrot, green bean,nuts and seeds no salt, , there's tons of info out there on diet. I realize most say pellets are best and they are ,but if not availiable remember too much of any thing is bad and lots of different things are good.I hope i've been some help, please feel free to ask more question if needed.Richard

[Boman]

Awesome, thanks guys! I'll post a pic soon

[entrancedbymyGCC]

Since her diet right now is mainly wet food -- fruit, cooked rice -- the wet droppings may just reflect the water intake. If you can't get pellets, you might look for whole grains and a small amount of nuts and seeds.

When in doubt, don't feed anything you wouldn't eat, and that includes the pits and seeds of anything where you wouldn't eat the pits and seeds. On top of that, as said, avoid avocado, chocolate, alcohol and caffiene. Too much raw onion or garlic, too much raw tomato, too much spinach can all cause problems, but that's more a dosage thing -- pasta and tomato sauce is fine in moderaion, for example. Junk for you is probably junk for a bird, and tiny tastes from time to time, in proportion, proably won't do harm, but they definitely shouldn't be a dietary staple.