Parakeet food

[Blu]

Okay Ill go with seeds and veggies

[Wolf]

I really think that you have made the better choice.

[Blu]

So do I. I have one more question. Would sprouting seeds be worthwhile or just plain ol seeds and veggies

[Wolf]

Sprouts are a very good source of nutrition but since they only get them naturally during breeding season then it may not be good to feed them on a regular basis. This is the problem with so many of the foods that we give them, they supply too much for their systems to handle and so has to work very hard to eliminate the excess. this is the reason why some diets cause them to have liver disease and such.

[Blu]

Okay thank you for that info

[Pajarita]

Exactly as Wolf said, most birds get sick from our 'loving' them too much - and you have to be especially vigilant with protein and budgies because they are incredibly opportunistic when it comes to breeding! Give them enough rich food and even when you keep them to a solar schedule, they go into breeding condition.

[Blu]

Okay No sprouts for Blue

[Blu]

what should I do with the two packs of lafeber pellets i have? I am still going to feed seeds but I have another question. You all said feed seeds because that's what they eat in the wild, but is that relevant that they eat those in the wild? If we were feeding what animals eat in the wild why don't we feed dogs and cats meat and not dog and cats pellets?

[Wolf]

Although seeds are indeed a large portion of the budgies natural diet in the wild, I do not recall saying to feed your bird seed as opposed to pellets because the eat them in the wild. One of the reasons that I don't feed pellets is water. Pellets are very dry and this can cause dehydration issues, in my opinion, primarily with species of parrots such as the budgie who have developed water conserving abilities within their own bodies due to living in arid and semi arid habitats. Most birds only drink twice a day, once in the morning and again in the evening. This is perhaps the least of my reasons for choosing not to feed pellets. My biggest concerns are that the formulation of these pellets is based on the nutritional needs of chickens, which are not even close to the nutritional needs of parrots. This leads the pellets for our parrots being much too high in fats, proteins and sugars it also means that the balance for the vitamins and minerals is in the wrong proportions for parrots. that is why I choose to not feed them.
I can understand that you have the pellets and really don't want to just throw your money away, but he isn't eating them anyway. Perhaps you could trade them back in for a seed mix, and not lose the total cost of the pellets.
The primary reason that we don't feed dogs and cats the same diet that they would eat in the wild is actually twofold, with the first part being simply the cost of feeding them what they would have eaten in the wild. the second is that there are only two naturally occurring dogs in the entire world all of the rest of the dog breeds have never existed in the wild. And there are no housecats that were not also created by and for man. They were never wild animals, feral at times yes, but not wild.

[Pajarita]

I was the one that said that they eat grass seeds in the wild - and the reason Wolf listed (dryness) is why they end up causing them kidney issues in the long term.

As to dogs and cats food, actually, if you do a bit of research, you will see that manufacturers of pet food have been going more and more with a diet closer to what their ancestors ate (no grains, no meat byproducts, etc). We now know that dry food is bad for cats precisely because of the same reason pellets are bad for birds: too dry and too much ash which gives them kidney malfunction so just feeding them dry kibble is no longer recommended. As a matter of fact, a certain percentage of cats suffer from what we call irritable bowel syndrome but which, in reality, is nothing more than a cat that is born with the exact digestive system as their ancestors were (meaning no capacity to digest carbs) and the only cure for it is to feed them meat and nothing else. And this is the reason why it's no longer recommended that either species is fed food which first and main ingredient is not meat (both my dogs and cats eat Blue Buffalo Wilderness). This is not only because of scientific research but also because people were beginning to feed them meat instead of buying their products and, if you do a bit more of research, you will find that there is now a lot of people who have their dogs on the raw diet (most people who show dogs feed them raw meat).