Chop/gloop

[stevesjk]

Hi guys,

I own a sennie, not posted here in a few years.

Anyway, my parrot suffers really bad from itchy skin and I'm starting to believe that it is from the pellets. She's currently on Harrison's.

When I say really bad I mean she sometimes has to go to the vet because her scratching causes infections so it's looking like I might be going down the fresh food route.

Don't get me wrong she eats fresh fruit and veg every day but I'm starting to think it might have to be her staple diet and totally eradicate the pellets.

The mash that she loves, it contains sweet potato broccoli, cauliflower, carrots peas and spinach. Please keep this simple because I'm a terrible Cook but what would I need to add-in to that mash to make sure she's getting all her nutrients so I can eradicate pellets, I'm terrible at this sort of thing.

[Pajarita]

Well, for one thing, you need to eliminate the spinach IMMEDIATELY!!! Birds should never eat spinach, it has waaaayyyyy too much iron for them and, because iron cannot be eliminated from the body (nature never counted on us feeding birds stuff that is not part of their natural diet so it never gave them a digestive mechanism to get rid of the excess iron they consume), it goes into the liver to be stored - this causes a condition called hemochromatosis which has no cure in birds and is fatal. And I would not be surprised if the itching is caused by this problem because skin itch is a common symptom of liver malfunction (didn't your avian vet do a bile acid test to check liver function after your bird showed up more than once with a skin infection due to scratching?). Don't forget that on top of the spinach, you were feeding pellets which already have iron in them...

Please put the bird on liver cleansers and tonics and eliminate not only the pellets but anything that is dry, dehydrated, freeze dried (liver malfunction, same as kidney malfunction requires high hydration) or has high iron.

Chop is also not really as nutritious as people think it is because it's made out of fresh produce which is the lowest in nutrition (frozen produce retains their nutritional value because it's picked when ripe and frozen almost immediately while fresh produce is picked unripen and loses nutrition during transport).

Gloop is not hard at all to make once you get the hang of it and it doesn't require a good cook either Simply cook whole grains (I use kamut, oat groats, spelt, red rice and hulled barley -all available in amazon.com) al dente (it's about 30 minutes of simmering after it comes to a boil), millet and/or quinoa (you need to cook them separate from the other grains because they are so tiny they cook VERY fast), and pulses (I use black lentils -aka beluga- because it's what my birds prefer but you should not use lentils because they are also high in iron and you need to eliminate as much iron as possible from its diet - at least, for a while) so use small white beans, instead. Once they are cooked (make sure you drain the extra water if you have any) and cooled, I split the batch into two halves, one half I freeze as is (for the next gloop batch) and the other half I mix with frozen veggies (still frozen, not thawed) I use corn, peas, carrots (diced, not sliced), chopped broccoli (chopped and not 'cuts or florets), butternut squash (also diced) and baked sweet potatoes which I nuke in a potato express bag with the skin on (I peel it after they cool) and cut into small chunks. To this, I add flax seed and, mid summer to the end of the molt, they also get some sesame seed but don't add the sesame because it's also high in iron compared to other seeds.

As supplements, use only calcivet or calciboost about once every two weeks for now (you can't give the bird any multivitamin/mineral because it would have iron in it UNLESS you can get one that has none) but it should get daily liquid non-alcoholic milk thistle and a bit of aloe vera juice (not gel only juice) from the inner filet (not from the entire leaf). A 6 oz cup will get 1/4 aloe vera, 3/4 spring water and half a dropperful of the milk thistle. In the gloop, add a sprinkle of dandelion root, methionine and theanine (from vegetarian capsules) right before you serve it (don't put it in the gloop that goes into the freezer). This will help with liver function but you should take the bird back to the vet and ask for a bile acid test to be done so you know what you are dealing with and, after 6 months or so of the new diet with the liver supplements, to see if it's getting better. I had a sun conure that had been fed Cheerios for years (human cereal is real bad for birds because it's very high in iron - up to 45%!) and, although hemochromatosis cannot be cured, you can stop the progress and slowly allow the liver to regenerate enough so it can reach a normal level of function and allow for years of good quality of life. Sunny is doing very well in her new home and has a bit high but still within normal liver enzymes value.

[stevesjk]

Thanks for the response.

Thankfully she never eats the spinach but that was pure luck. Won't do that again

When she went to the vets she had a full check up under anesthesia and he was happy with the results. A fungal skin infection was found but he couldn't guarantee that was the cause of the itch or a result of the scratching. I was given terbinafine and her feathers grew back, that was April 2020, fast forward April 2021 and the scratching returns. Always starts in spring.

That was a lot of dietary advice all in one go.....my heads fried lol

I already give calcivet by the way.

Right, I'm very very stupid when it comes to cooking so let's pretend we're explaining to a child.

Let's say for example I've got sweet potato (frozen) broccoli carrots cauliflower peas all frozen what do I need to add to that to make it a complete diet? If I could just have two or three examples and I can become more advanced as I go. I'll order them from Amazon.

Do I feed her 2 meals a day?

I bought a bag of tops because I heard they are cold-pressed and more natural as opposed to Harrison's which is warm pressed and could possibly cause skin irritation.

She doesn't like tops on its own but I'm thinking of mashing it in to the chops I make because I haven't got quite the confidence of having her food dietary needs met with just the gloops I plan to start making.

[Pajarita]

Yes, nutrition is a VERY hard subject to learn. It has taken me years of studying/reading/saving notes/etc to scratch the surface. Add to this the fact that each species has a different dietary ecology and you end up with A LOT of stuff you need to learn... But, thankfully for us, nature is thrifty and although they all have different natural diets, they can be 'grouped' into African, Australian and South and Central American species when it comes to a very generalized concept of their dietary needs.

Now, you shouldn't be giving her calcivet if she is eating pellets because pellets are made so they provide always the same level of vitamins and minerals (which is not what nature intended for birds as they are all seasonal feeders) and they already have both D3 and calcium so, if you are giving her calcivet on top of the pellets, she is getting way too much (and D3 also ends up in the liver as fatty nodules -precursor to fatty liver disease- because it's a fat soluble vitamin that nature decreed should be made in the body and not ingested).

I don't know what the 'complete' physical involved but, in my personal experience, avian vets never do a bile acid test unless one asks them to (they also never do ionized calcium, test for iron in the blood or even do full body XRays -not the best way to see if liver or heart are enlarged but enough so it gives you a good idea if you should explore further with an ultrasound) so it would behoove you to see exactly what the vet did and what the results were (I always ask for a copy of the results they get from the lab -we have a saying in Spanish: four eyes see more than two)

I don't know how to make the recipe easier (I am an old grandmother who cooks without recipes) but I will give it the old college try . Take one cup of kamut, one cup of oat groats, one cup of hulled barley and one cup of red rice and adding twice as much water as there are grains (meaning, you put all the grains in a largo pot and then add enough water so the water not only covers the grains but is over the grains by the same distance from the bottom of the pot as the grains are -if the layer of grains is, say, two inches deep in height from the bottom of the pot, you should add enough water so the water level is two inches above the top of the grain layer). Turn the heat high and, when it starts to boil rapidly, stir it a bit (to mix all the grains together evenly), cover the pot and reduce the heat so it simmers (meaning, it's not boiling hard but it has a little tiny bit of bubbles coming up very slowly) for about 20 or 25 minutes (watch the water level halfway and add more if it needs it because you do not want the grains at the bottom to burn). Cook half a cup of millet and half a cup of quinoa separately but following the same procedure only adding a little bit more water (they 'suck up' more because they 'grown' more) turn off the heat under the pot at around 10 minutes (they cook very fast because they are so little). Once both 'batches' are cooked, mix them together and allow to cool (if the pots still had water in them, drain the grains by dumping them into a pasta colander first). Once the mix is cooled, add the veggies without thawing them: get frozen corn, frozen peas and carrots, frozen chopped broccoli and frozen cubed butternut squash. Do not get the frozen sweet potatoes unless you are planning on cooking them because they need to be soft enough so they kind of 'break up' and some of the 'puree' that came off the pieces covers the grains and veggies (this way you ensure she is actually getting sweet potato even if she doesn't go for the little chunk of it). Add about two tablespoons of flax seed and VOILA! Gloop! Then all you have to do is freeze daily portions in baggies or some other way (some people who have only one bird do it in ice cube trays and take one cube a day to feed their birds but I like baggies better).

It is your decision, of course, but I would eliminate the pellets altogether and feed her only fresh (wet) organic food for a while because when one is faced with an animal that has allergies or intolerances (I've rescued dogs and cats as well as parrots for many years and have more than my share of 'mystery' reactions - I have a dog that can only eat salmon, no grains, no beef, no chicken, no lamb, no nothing but salmon and sweet or white potatoes) the cause of which cannot be specifically figured out, the best thing is to change EVERYTHING. Going by what you have posted, she has had more than enough vitamins and minerals for quite some time so I would put her on a cleansing regimen: everything organic, no extra vitamins/minerals for a few weeks (she has had more than enough for quite some time so this is not going to hurt her in the long term and might even be what makes the difference), organic aloe vera juice and liver and kidney cleansers and tonis (as I recommended on my previous posting). I put all the new birds on what I call the 'detox regimen' when they first come because people tend to overfeed some stuff and underfeed other so the regimen helps their bodies kind of find their own balance so they can start 'afresh'. I recently got a bluehead conure that is over 24 years old. Elvis came in lethargic, with an overgrown beak, dull eyes, etc (even my daughter could tell the bird was not well just by looking at it) and you should see him (I am not sure it's a him) now: bright and fully opened eyes (he squinted before), clean plumage (he bathes everyday now), flying around (he could not sustain even horizontal flight and he now can manage vertical flight) and vocalizing normally (the bird did not even make a peep at dawn or dusk) and the ONLY thing I did was to put him on the detox regimen and daily multivitamin/mineral (he wasn't getting any) for four weeks (I don't normally do four weeks but he was in bad shape) and then on the same diet my other birds get.

Try giving her gloop and raw produce for breakfast and just two or three small tree nuts for dinner (human grade and roasted) it and see what happens but please note that when you talk about any kind of allergy or intolerance, you do not see improvement in a matter of days and, sometimes, not even weeks because the histamine that is released into the bloodstream from the reaction to the allergen or irritant takes time to dissipate (flying would help a lot with this).

Also, no warm showers, no hair dryer, no touching her without washing your hands first (for things like cream, perfumes, nicotine, etc) and people food (NOTHING!). No nothing but organic food especially made for her and cold baths with spring water (same for drinking) because you need to eliminate ALL potential sources of dietary and environmental causes for the itch.

Let me know if this helped.

[stevesjk]

Thanks very much, yeah I've eliminated Harrison's now, she's eaten fresh food for breakfast and dinner but I did put a few tops pellets in because I am a bit paranoid that I'm missing something. It looks like she's converted now. Tops looks like the lesser of a few evils to me.

Today she ate sweet potato broccoli peas carrots cauliflower, apple, eggs and just a few tops mixed in.

The vet said it maybe a reaction to environmental changes like pollen as it seems to occur around spring time.

I will remove tops if I get the hang of making gloop. I'll add tree nuts to my list. I'll try to keep her eating as natural as I can. With summer coming she will be getting loads of sunshine too. Really hope I can get to the bottom of this, it's very stressful.

[Pajarita]

NO EGGS! No animal products (no meat, cheese, butter, yogurt, eggs, etc) or food prepared for humans whatsoever - NONE! You know, I really and truly do not mean to criticize but, given the fact that your bird has some sort of extreme reaction to dietary or environmental conditions, you are not very clear on what, exactly, the bird eats. For example, you listed spinach on the chop but then said she does not eat it which is pretty impossible if what she is eating is, indeed, chop because the produce in it is chopped very finely (almost pureed) and mix all together precisely so the bird cannot pick one thing over another so now I am thinking that, in reality, she does not eat chop at all and that maybe you put it out for her but she doesn't touch it - which is not only bad but completely different from what you said before. Another example, you never mentioned calcivet or eggs on your first posting even though these two things are super important to know because she should not be getting them at all. Please understand that I am not complaining or criticizing you but when you talk about an animal having an allergy or intolerance to some sort of food, you need to be VERY clear and give not only a complete list but also the frequency of different items... To give you an idea, if I had to list greens that my birds eat, I would have to put kale on it BUT they only get it once every two weeks while other greens, like romaine lettuce, they get once a week because it's too high in sorbitol - same with celery, they only get it once every two weeks because it's has too much salt and hardly any nutrition. See what I mean? It changes things. And now I wonder if you are not forgetting to mention something that is super important and which could very well be the cause of her problem.

As to a parrot being allergic to pollen... well, I am not saying it's impossible because few things really are but it is super duper unlikely (maybe 1 in a million thing?) because, for one thing, there are no studies that have shown that birds have allergies (vets -avian and otherwise- use the allergy thing when they don't know what is causing the problem and they admit to it); for another, parrots evolved to eat plat material and that includes flowers which have pollen in them and, last but not least, how much exposure can a pet parrot have to outdoor pollen? In my personal opinion, given the fact that you are not feeding the bird a good diet, I would not even consider something almost impossible like pollen as the cause and would concentrate on doing better on the food she eats. Mind you, nothing personal on this comment, it's a fact of life with captive parrots, none of them eat a good diet, not my birds, not your bird, not anybody''s birds. We all fail on this - it's only that some of us do a little better than others - a matter of slight degree and not a matter of good or bad.

[stevesjk]

Please have patience with me, i'm nearly there, it was sprinkled egg food over her chop which is sold for birds, guess I'll eliminate it

As long as the chop has sweet potato in it I can get her to eat most veggies.

Today she has eaten sweet potato, broccoli cauliflower peas (she loves) carrots and a few tops pellets until I learn to make grains.

For dinner, a peace of apple and some treenuts.

Today I am happy to report very little scratching.

[Pajarita]

Well, that is GREAT news! And, it might have been the Harrison's pellets that were doing it because they are made with soy (cheapest source of protein) while Tops do not. Soy is known to be not only an allergen but also for having both goitrogenic and estrogenic side effects which could have something to do with her skin irritation, too - the thyroid gland controlling so many different things, one of them being how dry or moist the skin is - and I know about this not only from studying it but also because I have hypothyroidism and cannot consume anything with soy PLUS I have a chronic problem with dry skin also because of it.

Now, although chop is good, I personally believe that feeding gloop (better nutrition all around) PLUS raw produce for breakfast and nuts for dinner is the way to go. I know that chop is made out of raw produce but, when you freeze it, you are 'killing' the phytonutrients in it which is, pretty much, the main reason for feeding raw. Freezing raw actually defeats the whole purpose of feeding it because, if one goes for actual nutrition, frozen is better. But even when chop is made fresh every morning, I still believe it's the wrong way to offer food to a bird (there is never anything resembling chop in nature). I believe that raw produce should be given in large pieces (could be whole berries -like black or blueberries, for example- could be 1/4 of an apple or an orange, could be a few inches of a carrot or a banana stuck between the bars of the cage, could be green beans or sugar snaps in a small bowl or tied together and stuck between the bars, etc) so the bird can hold in its foot, open it if it's required (as in the case of sugar snaps, for example -which my birds ADORE!) and take bites out of it - a MUCH more natural way for a bird to eat and a wonderful way to promote foraging. I actually skewer raw produce in the ends of the smallest branches I use as perches (I always try to find branches that have little branches coming off the one that I am going to use for a perch) - like a mini pepper or a cherry tomato. For example, today, my birds had chili gloop (a favorite of all of them), French green beans (tied into 'bundles' with cotton twine and stuck between the bars of the cage), pears (in quarters and halves) and red Swiss Chard (another BIG favorite, especially of the zons that go straight for it first thing) and, because the Swiss Chard leaves are big and long, I fold them in half to stick between the bars so the bird has both stalk and leaves to chew. See what I mean?

[stevesjk]

Yes I see exactly what you mean. I feel more positive tonight, especially as she's had a pretty good day, I don't think I've seen her hiss in annoyance at her body once, I'll keep a close eye tomorrow, if I get 2 decent days in a row out of her I think I can start assuming im on the right track.

I've got her breakfast set up, sweet potato, broccoli, cauliflower peas carrots with a few tops pellets mixed in,

For dinner I'll offer a piece of apple, piece of banana, some blackberries and 2 almonds.....

Does that sound like I'm getting a feel for it?

[Pajarita]

No almonds, they are high in calcium and you have been giving her double doses of it (too much calcium is as bad as too little of it). Give her pine nuts, cashews and macadamias. And substitute the cauliflower for corn (they love it and it's actually good for them).