by Pajarita » Mon Jul 08, 2019 8:36 am
Free-feeding means putting out a bowl of food in the morning and leaving it there all day long. And the reason why free-feeding protein leads to the parrot eating too much of it (with the consequences of fatty liver, kidney disease, obesity, cardiovascular disease, etc) is that parrots are hard-wired to crave protein. Let me explain. Animals are made to crave what they need for survival (life, reproduction) but it's not easily found in their natural habitat. There are no natural sources of protein that are available all year round and in abundance in nature (well, there is animal protein but, with the exception of two species and possibly a third one and contrary to what most sites say about parrots, all the companion species are stricly herbivore and not omnivore - not my opinion, it's the way ornithologists classify them based on their diet) so nature gave them a craving for it and, once they find a source (say, for example a palm tree or a small grove of them that bears nuts - which is only once a year), they eat and eat and eat until they can't eat no more. It's like people with fat and salt. They are necessary for life so evolution makes us crave them and, because of this, we tend to overeat (who wants to eat just a couple of potato chips or just 1/2 slice of bacon?).
Different birds have different cravings - for example, canaries are passerines that are natural grass seed eaters and when you put out, say, a romaine lettuce leaf, a slice of apple and a bowl of canary seed mix, the canary will always go first for the lettuce, then for the apple and last the seed (why? because, in their natural habitat -although canaries are a domesticated species- they don't get fresh greens or fruits all year round, only during spring and summer, but they do find grass seed almost all year round). But, feed a parrot the same thing and he will eat seed until his crop is full and maybe later he will have a bite of two of the apple and not touch the lettuce at all. The whole thing has to do with evolution, their dietary ecology and what is easily available in their natural habitat so in order for us to feed parrots correctly, we need to feed them in such a way that we end up emulating the 'final result' of their dietary ecology although we use a completely different method for it (because, let's face it, nobody is going to deprive them of a certain kind of food for months out of the year). So, at dawn, when the parrot is at its hungriest, I feed the raw produce. Then I wait about half an hour or so and then and only then feed them the gloop and, because they all love it, they will eat quite a bit of it. But, because it's cooked whole grains (translation: high moisture as the grain becomes imbued with water as it cooks, and high natural fiber, little protein and almost no fat) mixed with veggies, it's not fattening at all so they can eat all they want of it and never get fat.