Harrison's Bird Food?

[kikidee]

For the websites, I am not sure which my dad saw but here are a few that came up-

http://forums.avianavenue.com/index.php ... sick.8950/

http://bird.lifetips.com/faq/15516/0/wh ... index.html

[Wolf]

Thank you for providing me with the requested links. I read them with great interest. While I would rather that they had used a word other than normal in their explanation, the usage of it was correct. It is easy for the inexperienced to interpret what they said to mean that sneezing is normal for the bird, which in fact it is not. Sneezing is, however, a normal reaction to the environmental irritants in the air, and it is in this context that they used the word.
Also, technically, the bird is not always sick in the described instances, should the bird not be removed from the area these irritants are present or the air itself is not cleaned up to remove the irritants, the bird will become sick. And in the case of allergies, the sneezing may not indicate an illness in the standard usage of the term, just ask anyone with severe hay fever or other airborne allergies and I am certain that you will find that it does indeed make them sick while in the presence of said allergens.
This is my understanding of this condition.

[kikidee]

Yes, I realized they did mention that. However, I'm not sure what sort of allergy he might be having if any. We don't spray our air, it has been awfully hot but moist outside (I live in southern california a street down from the beach), and we haven't used our heater because it is so hot. I don't think we have a whole lot of dust either since we clean our house weekly. Is there anything else I should check that might be irritating him, or is going to the vet the only way to figure it out?

[Wolf]

You know, I really don't know, but there are a couple of things that come to mind right off and it is possible that neither one of them are the answer. It has been a long time since I was in CA., but there is the possibility of smog or even the amount of salt in the air from the ocean. I remember my first time in LA, I was in Venice Beach, and not only did I have issues with the smog, I could not taste anything for the first month other than salt from the ocean. I would think that air conditioning should help with this, but am not certain. Often when the air inside and outside our homes is tested for quality the results come back that the sir inside is more polluted than that outside.
I am afraid that, I have no answers for this one and am not certain tat a vet would either, but they might, they might even have confronted this issue already, I don't know.

[kikidee]

Hmm but aren't these birds used to having oceans around them? Especially in Australia, a country surrounded by water. Yes, LA is very heavy in smog but I live in a small beach town far enough from all big cities and our air is pretty clean since we're close to the ocean with no big factories.
Thank you for your input Wolf, I definitely have things to consider and I'll try and research more and also try to ask at least for a soon vet visit to make sure it isn't anything else.

[Wolf]

Australia is not only a country which is surrounded by oceans, it is also a continent just like North America which is also surrounded by oceans.
The Princess of Wales Parrot is also from an arid region of Australia and so is basically a desert dweller and lives in the interior of the continent a long ways from the ocean.

[Pajarita]

Actually, the information on both links is incorrect (just because somebody wrote something on a birdsite, it doesn't mean is right or that the person who wrote it knows anything). The most common cause of birds regular dry sneezing is either lack of moisture in the air (not your problem as you are having a humid summer -this is usually a problem in the winter when we use dry heat in our homes) or lack of sufficient mucus in the respiratory passages. No mucus = no discharge - BUT no mucus also means fertile ground for infection as it's the mucus that cleans up the respiratory system of debris and bacteria. Lack of mucus is always caused by a diet that lacks sufficient betacarotene as it's vitamin A that allows the body to produce it. The problem with vit A is that the body was not created to ingest it in its final form (that of a vitamin) as it's not found in nature. What it is found is the precursor: betacarotene and, when the body ingests food with it, it processes it and changes it into vit A as long as there is enough fat for it (vit A is not water soluble so it needs fat to be absorbed by the body).

Parrots need a lot of betacarotene so feed foods rich in it on a daily basis: carrots, sweet potatoes, pumpkin, cantaloupe, papaya, dark leafy greens (dandelion grees are very high on it but even romaine lettuce is good), red/orange/yellow peppers, etc.