Suggested diet for an African Ringneck

[JessiMuse]

I apologize for butting in, but can we please stop this? It's come to the point where it's not even about Benjamin's African Ringneck anymore. If you have any further arguments to make, I would suggest doing so via PM.

But I guess I'm not the one in charge here, am I?

[ParrotsForLife]

I apologize for butting in, but can we please stop this? It's come to the point where it's not even about Benjamin's African Ringneck anymore. If you have any further arguments to make, I would suggest doing so via PM.

But I guess I'm not the one in charge here, am I?

Exactly what I said and I think it is a little rude to be doing this on someones thread.

[ParrotsForLife]

Brandon, you are wrong, but in all fairness please validate you claims that I have made the statements that you are claiming that I have made. Show me these statements.

Im not even gonna bother answering you if your just gonna keep changing your story just give it a rest already.

[Pajarita]

Pajarita I know threads dont actually belong to someone but it is kind of rude to be fighting on someone else's thread and I think we can agree on that.Anyway I know im right so theres no need to be arguing with.... And Pajarita being rude doesn't make you a good person and I don't know why you would wanna be rude and im saying this because you did admit to being a rude person.

I've never, ever admitted to been rude, my dear. You really need to pay more attention to what is actually written. And why in the world would I be fighting with you?! What kind of a grandmother would I be if I fought with a child? Let's leave it at that, shall we?

[ParrotsForLife]

Pajarita I know threads dont actually belong to someone but it is kind of rude to be fighting on someone else's thread and I think we can agree on that.Anyway I know im right so theres no need to be arguing with.... And Pajarita being rude doesn't make you a good person and I don't know why you would wanna be rude and im saying this because you did admit to being a rude person.

I've never, ever admitted to been rude, my dear. You really need to pay more attention to what is actually written. And why in the world would I be fighting with you?! What kind of a grandmother would I be if I fought with a child? Let's leave it at that, shall we?

We are not Fighting lol.I probably misunderstood it but your thread you posted when you came back because a lot happened or something and someone left the forum.

[Pajarita]

Ahhh, I might have said something about my style been terse and sometimes rubbing people the wrong way...

[ParrotsForLife]

Ahhh, I might have said something about my style been terse and sometimes rubbing people the wrong way...

Yeah I think that was it.

[tielfan]

Hi, somebody directed me to this thread because I'm interested in avian nutrition and do a good bit of science-based research on it at the 'hobbyist' level.

Seeds and pellets actually aren't high-protein foods. Pellets have a level of protein that is considered to be ideal for most parrots (but not specialists like lorikeets). But the ratio of protein to calories in seed is less than ideal, and a bird would have to consume too many calories in order to get enough protein from seed.

When you look up nutrition data for a particular food, the protein percentage that they give you is kind of deceptive - it's the total amino acids in the food not the amount of complete protein it delivers. The various amino acids are never in perfect balance with each other and you're not going to be able to actually use all of it. Some seeds manage to come fairly close to the ideal ratio, for example oats and sunflower hit the 90% level and 100% is ideal. But others fall woefully short, like millet which is only about 30-35%. The paper at http://vdt.ugent.be/sites/default/files/art72107.pdf says on page 4 that a higher level of protein is required than what you can get in seed that hasn't been supplemented with the first limiting amino acid. This usually means lysine, which generally isn't plentiful in seeds, grains and nuts.

For seeds, nuts, grains and other foods that are eaten by humans as well as being used for bird food, you can look it up on this website: http://nutritiondata.self.com/ They have a nice amino acid scoring system that tells you how close a food comes to delivering the ideal ratio of protein to calories. A perfect score is 100; less than 100 means it's relatively low protein and more than 100 means it's high protein. Their score is for human requirements not birds, but it's pretty similar to bird requirements. Here's their listing for safflower, to show you an example of their scoring chart: http://nutritiondata.self.com/facts/nut ... cts/3068/2 Scroll down to the black and purple Protein Quality chart and you'll see that it has a score of only 65 and that the reason is not enough lysine. It's about 35% short of meeting the ideal protein ratio.

I wrote articles about both seeds and pellets, which have a lot more information on nutritional content and links to references to back it up. Here's the one on grains, seeds and nuts: http://www.littlefeatheredbuddies.com/i ... seeds.html

And here's the one on pellets, which has charts at the bottom showing expert recommendations on avian nutrition and a comparison to the nutrient levels in pellets: http://www.littlefeatheredbuddies.com/i ... llets.html

[tielfan]

According to Koutsos et al ( http://www.bioone.org/doi/abs/10.1647/1 ... 5D2.0.CO;2 ), wild birds need a lot more calories than captive birds but their requirement for everything else including protein is about the same.

Carbohydrates and fat are the primary energy sources for wild birds, pet birds, humans, and just about any animal that isn't a pure carnivore. It's possible to burn protein for energy but it's the least efficient source, which means you have to eat a lot more of it to get the same amount of energy that you'd get from carbs or fat. http://authoritynutrition.com/6-reasons ... a-calorie/

Protein has other important uses in the body and it's not always easy to get enough of it for those functions, so the body is programmed to use up the carbs and fat first. So if there are complaints to be made about birdseed, it's that the grains (like millet, canary grass seed and oats) are too high in carbs and the oil seeds (like sunflower and safflower) are too high in fat. These seeds don't provide enough complete protein anyway, so the body can't afford to squander it as an energy source when better sources are available.

Morning seems to be the time when calories are needed the most though. Nothing has been eaten for hours and the body needs to replenish its supply. When it comes to human weight loss, they tell you to eat more in the morning (because it helps jumpstart your metabolism) and eat less at night (because fewer calories are burned then and it's more likely to get turned into body fat). Birds slow down their metabolism at night just like humans do so it probably applies to them too.

Fatty liver disease is caused primarily by overeating and obesity. I know people who say it's really a malnutrition problem, because birds eat too much food in an effort to get the nutrients that their diet doesn't have enough of, which often includes a protein deficiency. For example the Merck Veterinary Manual at http://www.merckvetmanual.com/mvm/manag ... cines.html says "Deficiencies of vitamin A, protein (the amino acids lysine and methionine, in particular), calcium, and other nutrients are seen in most psittacine species on seed-based diets". Tthe previous sentence specifies that they're talking about an all-seed diet.

Protein isn't considered to be a cause of obesity, and in humans at least there are those who say that high-protein diets help with weight loss and prevent obesity. I don't think the relationship between protein and obesity has been studied in birds, but I do know that some avian vets who are very knowledgeable about nutrition primarily blame excess carbs and fat for avian obesity. They even say to limit fruit because it's too high in carbs (simple sugars) compared to the amount of vitamins and minerals you get out of it.

[tielfan]

BTW plant foods in general are so low in two essential amino acids (lysine and methionine) that it's basically impossible to get too much protein on a diet of plant foods alone. In fact it takes some planning or luck to get enough protein on an all-plant diet. Grains, seeds and nuts in general tend to be lowest in lysine, while beans and legumes tend to be lowest in methionine. That's why you get additional complete protein when you combine the two - the extra methionine in the grains combines with the extra lysine in the beans and boom, you've got some extra protein. The recipe given earlier in this thread is expected to provide more protein than seeds alone, because it's got both grains and beans in it.