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Sun Conure started biting after moving

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Re: Sun Conure started biting after moving

Postby Wolf » Wed Aug 03, 2016 5:24 am

I rely on my avian vet for many things, but not when it comes to diet. Well that is not entirely true, I do listen very closely and then discuss it with them, just the same as I do with my own doctor. I have several avian medical texts and while they do cover nutrition it is only very briefly.

At one point in development of pellets, it was claimed by the manufacturer that they were a complete diet for our parrots and the vets went along with this and today still sell which ever brand that they prefer or who gives them the largest profit margin. But it has been proven that our birds really do need to have fresh fruits and vegetables in their diet. It is now recommended that parrots eat at least 30% of their diet in the form of fresh fruits and vegetables, Pellets are recommended to not exceed 30 to 50% of a parrots diet depending on the species of the parrot.

Just like with human doctors, not all vets are equal, some are much better than others, some are " old school" and have not kept up on the latest developments in bird nutrition and others are sometimes too much on the " cutting edge".

I do not feed my birds pellets and after discussing what I feed my birds and going over the values in the blood tests done on my birds, my vet is very pleased with what my birds are eating. This does not mean that pellets do not have a place in parrot nutrition, they do as they are one way to insure that your bird get a certain minimum level of nutrition.

The best way to get your bird to eat the frits and vegetables that it needs is to add them to your own diet and then to share them with your bird as well as to always have some prepared and in their food dish. This does take some time and I consider it to be an ongoing process. The reason that your bird does not eat these foods is that it was not taught to eat them when they should have been taught about them and as a result it does not recognize them as food. I can go into more depth about how to teach your bird to eat these foods if you need me to.
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Re: Sun Conure started biting after moving

Postby Pajarita » Wed Aug 03, 2016 1:02 pm

Wolf is right, parrots learn what to eat from their parents when they are very young and, because breeders usually wean them to what is easiest, this normally means no produce because it takes time and effort to teach them to eat a wide range of it (and it's expensive, too!). I got a ten year old female sun conure which came to me with hemochromatosis because of a bad diet. She had been fed seeds originally and the previous owner, thinking he was doing the right thing, fed her cheerios for the last two years she spent with him so now she needs to be on a special VERY low iron diet and get liver supplements for the rest of her life. She also did not eat produce but she started eating gloop almost right away and that has chopped veggies so, although it's still a long way from when I could say that she is getting a good, balanced diet, I don't obsess over it as she will get there. The key is persistence so keep on offering her fruits and ALWAYS eat them in front of her (parrots are very much parrot see, parrot wants).

As to what vets know or don't know about avian diets.... well, it does depend on the vet but one needs to take into consideration that avian vets do not go to school to become avian vets, they are just regular vets (usually dog and cat and not large animal ones -these been the only two 'specialties' that vets have) who, having practiced under a board certified avian vet, study on their own from their chosen avian medicine text book and pass a test. The reality is that avian nutrition is way too complex for any one person to know it all because you are talking about almost 10,000 species all with different dietary ecologies which range from nectar to sheep! I mean, if anybody wanted to write or study all of them, we would be talking hundreds of books! But there are some that do know. I had two avian vets who knew a lot about parrot nutrition because they both kept multiple parrots for years (one of them had a cockatoo with PDD for which I came up with a special gloop recipe) and had made it their business to learn on their own - coincidentally, neither fed pellets to their parrots (and one of them, my beloved Dr. Jodie, was the best avian vet I ever had!) and both admitted to me that they recommended pellets because they considered them 'the lesser evil' as they did not think that people could feed a parrot correctly (but I disagree with this).

In any case, like I said, just because I don't feed pellets, it doesn't mean that I am telling you not to use them. All I am saying is that free-feeding pellets to a bird that is mostly a fruit eater will, in the long term, have negative health consequences for the bird as everybody knows that parrots NEED a goodly amount of produce daily, some more and some less, it depends on their natural diet, but none can make it on pellets alone. And feeding too much protein will make a bird hormonal which, in turn, means aggression, especially when they overly hormonal, a condition that causes them physical discomfort and even chronic pain as their sexual organs grow too large and start displacing other internal organs.
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Re: Sun Conure started biting after moving

Postby liz » Fri Aug 05, 2016 6:32 am

Hands on knowledge is important as well as what the vet says.

You bird came without instruction. It is like putting something together without knowing which thing goes where. Instead of leaning on you to do things our way we are telling you how we did it.

In the forum you will get different advice from different parronts.
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Re: Sun Conure started biting after moving

Postby Perroquet » Sat Aug 06, 2016 7:32 pm

I have 3 conures and they reacted very badly to my last move. It took them at least a month, and maybe it was two to get over it. My Senegal was okay in one day.
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Re: Sun Conure started biting after moving

Postby seagoatdeb » Tue Aug 09, 2016 2:49 pm

Parrots can be so different about eating fresh foods. Out of the two I have now, I have the two extremes Gaugan is picky and I sometimes had to offer the same fruit or vegetables for months before she would eat some of it. I have had brocolli fights to get her to eat some brocolli. She was hard work to get eating well. Sunny eats everything, I think he is one I will have to watch doesnt get over weight as he ages, but he is a very active parrot.
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Re: Sun Conure started biting after moving

Postby Perroquet » Sat Aug 20, 2016 12:37 am

My conures eat very well. They play with food a lot. I will not talk about adults if wrong.
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Re: Sun Conure started biting after moving

Postby Wolf » Sat Aug 20, 2016 8:50 am

Perroquet, please talk about what ever you wish to.

As to your birds responding poorly after a move, it is because parrots do not handle change very well. When we move them to a place that they do not know, they get scared. They don't know what predators may live in the new place or where they might be hiding. It takes them some time to learn the new place and adjust to it so that they can relax and not be afraid. Some parrots can deal with this type of change better than other ones.
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Re: Sun Conure started biting after moving

Postby Perroquet » Sat Aug 20, 2016 4:46 pm

Wolf wrote:Perroquet, please talk about what ever you wish to.

As to your birds responding poorly after a move, it is because parrots do not handle change very well. When we move them to a place that they do not know, they get scared. They don't know what predators may live in the new place or where they might be hiding. It takes them some time to learn the new place and adjust to it so that they can relax and not be afraid. Some parrots can deal with this type of change better than other ones.


Yes the Conures they get grouchy and are loud from move. They are fine after month. The Senegal was nicer after move for a while to me.
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Re: Sun Conure started biting after moving

Postby Wolf » Sat Aug 20, 2016 9:45 pm

I don't really know for a fact but the difference could be either the difference in the personalities of these two different types of parrots or it could have more to do with the conures having more of a flock. Many single parrots will get nice or nicer to their humans when they move to a new place. I have not had to move since I brought my birds home, but it still took them some time to adjust to their new home. Just a thought and a guess about why they reacted so differently.
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Re: Sun Conure started biting after moving

Postby liz » Sun Aug 21, 2016 5:44 am

I only know about Conures by reading in this forum. My two Amazons have always liked change. About once a month I move cages around and change toys in their cages. They would get excited as if I gave them something new.
When I moved from NC to FL I expected it to be difficult for Myrtle. I guess in 5 years she had not forgotten her last move from SC to NC. As long as I was with her she was not afraid and just confused.
Rambo on the other hand had always love "bye byes" and had quite a few in his 31 years. He came to me a week ahead of his cage because we needed a truck to move it. I put him and his thins on the dining room table in the middle of the house with a small cage to sleep in. He started my training from there and loved the excitement in my very busy house. (When the human before me came to visit he hid quietly in a cardboard box while she was in my home so she could not find him and take him back to her home.) He had always been a "go go" bird so I left him to his own resources when we moved here. He stayed in his room and looked out the window all the time. It was quite some time before I realized that Rambo was not Rambo and set up a cage in the dining room for him. I feel so bad that I was not more alert and did not catch on that he was confused. Moving to the middle of the house with everyone all around him brought him back to being himself.
The Cockatiels did not care where they were as long as they were all together they were okay.
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