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what is the right food for a s it said you can feed your par

Talk about bird illnesses and other bird health related issues. Seeds, pellets, fruits, vegetables and more. Discuss what to feed your birds and in what quantity. Share your recipe ideas.

what is the right food for a s it said you can feed your par

Postby red rose » Wed Mar 17, 2010 11:43 am

hi, got my first senagal bout 3 weeks ago. i have been given him parrot food that has a mixture of peanuts sun flower seeds ect he seems to eat the sunflowers seeds and the rest end up on the cage floor i am now going to have to look out for some more parrot food as he dosent seem happy with the ones i give him. i have looked on the internet and read that you can feed the parrot chicken,tuna,cheese,yougurt ect i though they just eat seeds and fruits????? :danicing:
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Re: what is the right food for a s it said you can feed your par

Postby lzver » Wed Mar 17, 2010 11:58 am

I would suggest you start with a good quality pellet food as a base - I don't remember the exact brand/blend I get for my birds, but it has a mix of pellets and dried fruits/nuts. I keep this in their bowls for them all the time. Then I give them a mix for fresh fruits and vegetables twice a day. I put the fresh veggies/fruits in a separate bowl and leave in their cage for an hour or 2 in the morning and at supper time. Whatever they don't eat, I throw out.

My 2 go crazy for the fruits/veggies every day and seem to just pick out whatever they like from the pellet food. I think they're spoiled with all the fresh food and they find the pellet food to be boring, but I think they eat enough of it to have a balanced diet.

Get used to wasting food when you have a bird. With my 2, it seems like more lands on the bottom of their cage (or floor) than they actually eat.

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Re: what is the right food for a s it said you can feed your par

Postby Suzzique » Wed Mar 17, 2010 1:47 pm

Sunflower seeds are very bad for birds. They are ok as a once in a while treat but not for everyday. They are extreamly high in fat and so adicting that some birds will not eat anything else. While pellets are best a good seed/pellet mix with NO sunflower seeds is also fine. Birds need fresh food every day. I only give mine breakfest and then they join us for dinner. While dairy is not bad just go easy most birds are lactoce intalerent. The one major veggie no no for any bird is avacado. Avacado is deadly to birds. With that list is caffien, chocolate, and alcohol. There are other things that are debated about but those 4 are the ones that can kill your bird. There is a great book called Feeding Your Pet Bird buy Petra M. Burgmann I think it's out of print but I found mine on Amazon used. There are also some good cook books for birds but they aren't really nessecarry.
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Re: what is the right food for a s it said you can feed your par

Postby entrancedbymyGCC » Wed Mar 17, 2010 7:23 pm

I don't have much to add to what's been said, but I'd suggest you buy or borrow from the local library a good general book on caring for parrots. There is a big comprehensive book by Gary Gallerstein that covers all kinds of pet birds and everything from diet to first aid, and plenty of other good references out there. There is a lot to know and much of it is not intuitive if you are used to cats and dogs, or even cats dogs and horses (but horses and birds have an interesting amount of overlap because both are social prey animals.)
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Re: what is the right food for a s it said you can feed your par

Postby pfinarffle » Sat Mar 20, 2010 2:58 am

Also, never give your birds anything but "human grade" peanuts if they are still in their shells (something made to be eaten by people). If they have been shelled and roasted (no salt), they're safe. But peanuts in the shell can carry a fungus that is potentially very harmful to birds.

Bird nutrition is a very tricky subject, and one that not too many experts even know all that much about decades after people have started keeping birds in their homes. Then there's the problem of birds being very finicky eaters. If you're trying to feed your bird something and he/she won't eat it, try pretending to eat it in front of them to let them know it's safe to eat it. Would also highly recommend reading up on it to help you out! Lots of other such tips/tricks out there.
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Re: what is the right food for a s it said you can feed your par

Postby pchela » Wed Mar 24, 2010 11:33 pm

After much research I'm about to switch my birds to a diet of sprouts, a mash I make with sweet potatoes and carrots and other good stuff in it, fresh fruits and veggies and some pellets. I'll give favorites such as nuts and seeds as treats.
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Re: what is the right food for a s it said you can feed your par

Postby Kathleen » Thu Mar 25, 2010 11:34 am

As been said already, this is not an adequate diet for a healthy bird.

You will have to transition your bird most likely to eat properly. Since the bird has been getting treats all of the time, it probably won't be interested in the pellets or in vegetables but I don't know your bird's history.

When I had a budgie, all it would eat was seeds. It absolutely refused everything else.

But I was sneaky. I tricked into eating other things. Unfortunately, the bird didn't live long enough or maybe I would have had success with pellets and even more vegetables, but at the very end, I could offer the budgie a bowl of pieces of carrot, broccoli and string bean and it would eat them.

I chopped up the pieces of vegetables as finely as I could (seriously, just kept chopping and chopping) until they were about the size of the seeds that I was giving the budgie (remember, these are small, millet spray kind of seeds) and the vegetables were a little damp. I mixed some seeds into the bowl to entice the bird and he would go and try to pick out the seeds but he ate pieces of vegetable too. Due to water cohesion, the vegetable pieces stuck a little bit to the seeds and to his beak, and he found out he liked the vegetables. Overtime, I would keep creating this mix and lower the amount of seeds each time. If he seemed to lose interest, I would add a little more seeds to entice him again. A little bit of vegetables is better than all seeds.

You can modify this concept a little bit to transition your Senegal to a healthy diet. In the long run, your parrot needs to be eating properly.
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Re: what is the right food for a s it said you can feed your par

Postby bmsweb » Thu Apr 08, 2010 6:00 pm

I tried pellets yesterday for the first time and my conures were throwing them out and eating the seeds and then going to the fruit bowl. So today I'm trying the following and see how it goes.



Fingers crossed it works
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