Feeding a mostly fruit, low veggie and no pellet diet.

[KimberlyAnn]

So I've been doing a lot of reading and I still have to contact my local university (UC Davis in California) and get more information and hopefully some other leads to more information about this.

But here is just one website that goes into the most detail about how birds digest food. I will leave out the other links I found for now. Just to make things simple. Thoughts?

http://thebestbirdfood.com/

[Eric&Rebecca]

I read an article recently on Northern Parrots about how pellets that use crumplet and cold pressing are more suitable for small parakeet digestion... can I find it now... NO....

I'm sure I've read about it though I believe TOPS and Optibird use 'crumples' or 'crumplets' for the smaller parakeet pellets for this reason.

I would love to exclude pellets completely but the access to what I have is not stable or reliable enough to implement it. If you have all this available then definitely go for it

[KimberlyAnn]

I hate losing links! I lost one too. This one..

It was about how your birds are ground eaters, others are mid-canopy, and Green Cheek Conures are part of the high canopy group. Your birds would do better on pellets then mine. Your birds eat grain naturally. My bird, it seems, needs mostly fruit, few veggies, and a little protein from dark green leaves and bugs. Plus flowers and unripe nuts. Actually, in the wild, GCCs prefer unripe everything. From what I read so far anyway. If that's true...then I might worry less about how our fruit has been changed so much from the wild, like Marie pointed out on the Red Palm Oil post. But I will have to read up on today's fruit and the amount of starch in unripe fruit. Also enzymes, acids, levels of different things, etc etc etc. Haha, one door open, means ten more to look into. Thankfully I LOVE to research things.

I'm far from going all natural, I want to do more research. But I've upped Emmi's fruit and she got watery poops that were terribly scary because of blackberries! Then they went back to normal. In fact, better then normal. I'm seeing more white part then I ever did before. It's still small, but it's much more defined. And there is a very small amount of clear liquid, but hardly noticeable. But there is definitely three parts to her droppings now. She seems less itchy and less grumpy today, but it's only been a few days.

She is still eating her pellets, but much less. She's eating some veggies too, but I've given her mostly green leaves which is what she loved more anyway. But I got a lot of reading to do! LOL

But it's just interesting, all I'm reading

[Eric&Rebecca]

That's very interesting!

I still think I need to increase their fresh portions more but I noticed how much better Edmund looked and his droppings were once we added TOPS perhaps its the same thing except with fresh foods for your conure.

I've been looking into all parts of the diet, even my seed mix which they still have a portion daily as I've read cockatiels being ground foragers need this.

And yes... the blackberry poop! HA I've been there!

[Strawfrawg]

My old vet, an avian specialist/professor at Cornell, was a big fan of whole food diets. My cockatiel wasn't, though, so I never really got to make a switch.

I find that as Marvin is growing up a bit he definitely prefers whole foods. It's funny, he makes pretty balanced choices. It's like he knows what he needs when he has the options are in front of him (except apples and walnuts...he'll OD if I don't do good portion control). Thanks a lot for posting the link...very interesting. I definitely think it's worth the work to provide what's best, and to keep exploring new possibilities.

[KimberlyAnn]

That's very interesting!

I still think I need to increase their fresh portions more but I noticed how much better Edmund looked and his droppings were once we added TOPS perhaps its the same thing except with fresh foods for your conure.

I've been looking into all parts of the diet, even my seed mix which they still have a portion daily as I've read cockatiels being ground foragers need this.

And yes... the blackberry poop! HA I've been there!

Yes! Your birds seem to need way more seed and grains then mine. The blackberry poop first thing in the morning (GCC save it up allllll night for one huge poop in the morning) was soooo...I don't even have the right word! Let's just say I was cleaning splattered purple spots on my carpet for a long while. Lol But it cleared up fast after that. I'm not so scared of runny poops after fruit anymore.

I have to also add, when I put out guava for Emmi, the smell in my livingroom is so tropical! So much better then the sented candles I used to love.

[KimberlyAnn]

My old vet, an avian specialist/professor at Cornell, was a big fan of whole food diets. My cockatiel wasn't, though, so I never really got to make a switch.

I find that as Marvin is growing up a bit he definitely prefers whole foods. It's funny, he makes pretty balanced choices. It's like he knows what he needs when he has the options are in front of him (except apples and walnuts...he'll OD if I don't do good portion control). Thanks a lot for posting the link...very interesting. I definitely think it's worth the work to provide what's best, and to keep exploring new possibilities.

Yes! I really think they do know what they need. I just wish humans could gain that feeling back. I do try. If I'm hungery, I try to think of a color (something I read in a nutrition book), like if I think of orange, I grab a carrot. It works out so much better then "I'm hungry, where's the potato chips?" LOL