AnneBoleyn wrote:Hi Pajarita!
I have had Dandelion and Burdock for about 6 weeks now after rescuing them from someone who did not want them and they had both been quiet neglected (during these few weeks they have improved 10 fold!) and they are both babies of between 6 and 7 months old, but they don't have any leg rings, so my age is only an estimation. As such they do not have their adult plumage yet (they are a Plum head pair and Burdock has been dna sexed) To bring them up to full health I have been feeding them a high vitamin mix and dried fruit, nuts as well as fresh fruit (they adore raspberries!) and corn cob. They both have delightful but very different personalities. Dandelion (the girl) is defiantly the boss! I am currently working on "step up/down) finger training, but sometimes they just want a cuddle and love being wrapped in a warm towel after a bath. I will post some pictures soon.
Well, I would be careful about the high vitamin mix, the dried fruit and the nuts. These are Indian parrots and they eat mostly fruits so that means low protein, low fat, very high fiber and very high moisture (90 - 95%!) so I would use those parameters to 'plan' a good diet for them. Nuts are nutritious but they are also quite high in protein and fat (I would substitute with a good quality budgie mix). Dried fruit is usually not good for parrots... I know that a lot of people feed their parrots dry and even dehydrated fruit but, unless the fruit is dried naturally and without any preservatives (most dry fruit has them), we are talking about a food that is too dry (lack of moisture as well as concentration of sugar) and has bad things for them (sulfites to preserve color and texture). I use dry fruits mixed in their gloop (what they get for breakfast and all day picking) but it's stuff like organic raisins, currants, figs, dates, etc and I usually soak them overnight in warm water so they can absorb moisture before I put them in the gloop. The vitamin and mineral supplements sound great but you have to be real careful about vitamin D3 and A intake because bodies were not meant to ingest them but to make it from the precursors so there is no mechanism to get rid of the excess and, because they are both fat soluble, the 'extra' ends up been stored in their liver as fatty nodules which ends up in fatty liver disease. Too much iron is another problem because it gives them hemochromatosis, a condition that is not only fatal but also has no cure.
With birds and vitamins/minerals and protein, less is better than more. We are not used to this concept and all of us tend to feed and supplement too much so we all need to be super vigilant about it...