diet corrections/physical problems

[Chantilly]

Tilly has started to do a wing flik thing. lifting it up and twitching at the base where it joins her back. She only does it on her right wing and only after a big fly of sometime after a bath. Now this concerns me quite a bit. And I KNOW her diet is incorrect, and I am looking to fix it. She also has a tiny red dot on the edge of her eye, (its just on the white around her eye), very close to her eylashes (or little feather dot things at the edge of her eyelid) it is like a teeny tiny pimple.
Her diet is really bad, it is what the people we bought us from told us to feed her (seed) and so we have continued. Please dont pick on me, I am trying to fix it. But i doubt it will be easy.
She gets a mix of seed and dried banana, apple, apricot ect:
and vetafarm pellets. (based on soy :'( )
and two or more big chuncks of fruit & veg
so iwas thinking once i figure out how much pelleted food and seed she eats each day i can reduce it by ten percent(offering her veggies and fruit)
And continue slowly reducing it till we are at a 50% fruit and veg and 50% seed/pellet.
then carefully continue to reduce her seed snd introduce gloop.
Then we will be at 50%percent fruit and veg and 25% gloop and 25% seed/pellet
And then I can get her into an eating routine of gloop for breakfast of 7:00am till 11:00pm
and from 11:00pm to 5;00pm fruit and veg
and then 5:00pm till 6:00pm she would get seed.
Is this an alright plan? of course i will have to ensure that she is eating the fruit and veg and not fading away. Any tips/critisisms are greatly appreciated. what is your flocks diet&routine? I really appreciate anything you have to add or say. Just dont hate me to much I will be trying to look at this positivly,as i will be making my princess healthier. I will keep you updated..-

[Chantilly]

Note Good pelleted foods(I think they sound good...): rowdybush zupreem et: are hard to get in Aus. No stores seem to sell it and postage is a killer. A huge killer....

[Wolf]

I have heard about the difficulties involved in getting quality bird foods in Australia from many different people that live there. But despite this, I still have no idea as to what is available in any part of the country, or any other avian resources for that matter. Strange, for a country that is the home for so many different parrots, isn't it?
Any way back to your questions.
We may be blunt in our responses at times, but I assure you that no one hates you or has any intention of picking on you. The truth is that our only real concern is the well being of your bird(s) and like many other animal people our animal skills are much better developed than are our people skills. We sometimes forget to work on developing these people skills as much as we should but we do try to be nice, at least when we remember or are reminded to be nice.
You have spent a lot of time and probably countless hours of worry in developing a very complicated plan of how to best proceed with the improvement of your bird's diet and no doubt other areas as well. But to be honest with you, I really don't care for your plan and partly because it is too complicated and that usually makes it very hard to keep up on. Sometimes the simplest ways are the best way to go.
I do not feed any of my birds pellets, although I do feed a seed mix for their evening meal, the remainder of their diet consists of Gloop and fresh raw produce in the form of fruit, vegetables and leafy greens. Fruits are very good for your bird, but for the Green Cheek Conure the most fruit recommended in their diet is about 30%.
Gloop is really a fairly easy food to produce and one of the reasons for this is that you can make it out of whatever is available in your locality. Mine varies due to many factors, such as what is available at the time of the year, or just because I want a little different texture to it or mostly to increase the variety of their diet. The thing that remains the same is that it is 40% cooked whole grains of at least 4 to 5 different ones, 40% cooked mixed vegetables, this is where they get the most variety, and 20% cooked white beans and lentils and possibly other legumes, these are the source of protein. From there you can make as many different versions as you care to and rely on what is easily obtainable in your area. Now one note is that organic is best when it comes to food for your bird.
I think that it is best to start switching your bird to gloop by beginning with the cooked whole grains, if you only partially cook them so that they are soft on the outside and still hard on the inside they resemble seeds in texture for the bird. I would then mix some of the bird current seed mix in with these partly cooked whole grains, just to get it started. Then when Tilly is eating this pretty well I would add a cooked vegetable or two such as corn and carrots and/ or green peas. Then start adding in the cooked white beans and lentils and by the time the bird is eating this I would no longer add seeds to the mix and just keep adding a larger variety of cook vegetables to it. This is for breakfast as well as for all day eating. I also feed fresh produce for breakfast and for all day long. I usually give one each of a fresh raw fruit, vegetable and leafy green. This fresh produce is probably the most difficult of foods to get Tilly to eat and because of this they also provide the biggest opportunity for increasing both social interaction and bonding with Tilly. All it require of you is that you sit down and eat some of the fresh produce in front of her before she gets anything else for breakfast. This does mean that she is hungrier but that is ok and won't last very long, you do need to make a show of how good the fresh produce is while you hoard it for yourself until tilly is demanding some of it and then you offer her a little piece of it. She may eat it or she may drop it or even throw it at first but don't give up. Limit the time spent doing this to about 10 to 15 minutes every morning and them place the fresh produce in her cage and give her the rest of her breakfast and let her eat. It will not hurt for you to stay and continue to nibble on the fruit or other produce while she eats because the sharing of food is a social activity as well as a bonding activity for a parrot. They really prefer to eat with someone rather than eating alone.
We, as humans tend to do things by the clock, but parrots don't particularly go by clock time although sometimes it seems that they do because their internal clock is that accurate. I feed my birds shortly after they wake up and finish most of their morning greetings to each other and to me, this is usually about half an hour or so after dawn and then in the evening I feed just before dusk which gives them time to eat and relax before they roost for the night.
I hope that this will help you.

[Chantilly]

Thankyou so much Wolf
I really apreciate this I will get wholgrains when we go out next (hopefully tommorow)
Yes there really isnt much up here at all, all the pet store nearby only sell seed and Vetafarm, and if you ask anyone "what should i feed my bird?" the answer always seems to be a"seed mix" and after starting volonteering for a bird park, I see that everyone that trys to sell seed is wrong, and quite a few of these people probably have a bird of their own. The parrots at the sanctuary get a mix of veggies, fruit and a little bit of seed(and peanuts). This is what had me look into it more and relize that what Tilly gets isnt suffice. I'm really really excited to get started, thankyou

[Wolf]

Thank you and I want you to know that I will do my best to help you and your bird friend to have a long, healthy and wonderful life with each other.

[Pajarita]

Mostly all birds come to us not eating right. It's rare that we get one, adult or baby, that is used to eating a good, healthy, varied diet so believe me when I tell you that you are not alone when it comes to this.

I agree with Wolf, it doesn't do to make it too complicated. The method of switching starting with a high percentage of what the bird is currently eating and very slowly and very gradually decrease it while increasing the percentage of the 'good' food is what people recommend when switching a bird from seeds to pellets for the simple reason that birds don't usually like pellets But, in my personal experience, they all like gloop so it doesn't have to be as hard as that. I don't even bother making the grain only gloop to start off the new birds any longer but I have the advantage of all my other birds eating it with gusto and, as parrot see, parrot does, the new ones simply copy the older ones and start eating it in a matter of a few days. But, when you have a single bird, you do need to go slower so, yes, start with the grains cooked at dente and choose grains that resemble seeds (like kamut, wheat, oat groats, hulled barley) and mix them with a bit of the seed mix he is used to eating. Once you see the empty white 'skins' leftovers, you know he is eating the grains so you can eliminate the seeds altogether and start adding veggies to it (start with frozen corn and then peas, they all love these).

I just put together a gloop recipe that is halfway between the easy one of the Kashi 7 whole grain pilaf based one and the one I normally prepare so look for it in the diet section to get ideas (give me a few minutes because I still have to write it ).

As to fruits, GCCs love them with a passion so you should have no real trouble getting him to eat them as long as he sees you eating them yourself (do it early in the morning, before he gets his gloop and when he is good and hungry).

[seagoatdeb]

The one tip I can give is to offer her lots of veggies right away, because it takes them time usually to even try veggies when they have been on an all seed diet. Vegetables will not usually give watery stools like fruits can, so can be introduced quickly into a new diet. A seed diet bird will have malnutrition so this can speed up the intake of veggies and introduce a great variety right away. It also lets them choose what they may need for nutrition.

[Chantilly]

Thankyou everyone,
I havnt yet gotten a chance to get wholegrain yet, but I'll try to encorage her to have some veggies, hopefully it shouldnt be to hard because if i put anything in my mouth it has to be in hers, or else hehe.
She already loves fruit. her favourites are apple, banana, grape.. but the one she goes ballistic for is strawberry!! Sadly its out of season now.
how do you cook the wholegrains? boil them?... (I dont have a microwave lol)
I'm really really happy about this, thankyou Its good to know that everyone is happy to help. You guys are great

[Chantilly]

I know its for reptiles, but what are your thoughts on this if she refuses her veggies? http://www.petbarn.com.au/jurassipet-ju ... 250ml.html

[Wolf]

Even if it were designed for birds, I would not use this product.
The reason that our birds refuse to eat the right foods is due to their not being taught about them during the weaning process, which is when its parents would have taught it what to eat and how to find it. Our birds are removed from their parents before this point in their lives and the breeders do not take the time to wean them properly or to introduce these foods to them at this time. Then the new owners are not informed that they need to teach the bird about foods.
The parent birds would have eaten the food in front of the young bird after showing it what the food looks like. They would repeat this process until the young bird tried to take the food away from the parent bird, and then the parent bird would offer the young bird a piece of the new food. This is the same process that we should use to teach our birds to eat new foods. The bird may not eat the new food right away, but don't give up,keep repeating tis process until your bird is eating the food.