Suggested diet for an African Ringneck

[Pajarita]

It was near the bottom of the post but that is also stated by tielfan.

Sorry, I didn't see it. I saw the whole 'ceca' thing and opened up the link which is only about chickens digestive tract (which do have a ceca and, besides, are omnivorous as well as a 100% ground foraging species) and did not finish reading the whole thing to the end. My bad!

I would like a link where it says that parrots vitamin B12 producing bacteria is located in the lower part of their intestines (large intestines) because, although humans do produce it in the large intestine, I've been looking and looking and looking and have not been able to find anything about which part of the intestine psittacines use for vit B12 production although I found that, apparently, in all species, the site for absorption is the ileum. I did find that, in birds, the larger intestine (which corresponds to the lower part of the intestinal tract) is mostly used for water and electrolyte absorption. And that not all species produce vit 12 in the intestines, either, ruminants and insects don't and although they don't mention parrots, specifically, there are references to herbivores, in general. I also looked up all the avitaminosis listed on the avian medicine text books and could not find B12 in relation to parrots (there is for fowl, though) and my current avian vet (as well as Dr. Jodie but I wanted to confirm that my memory was correct) says that there has never been a parrot diagnosed with it. Plus, if this was necessary to be supplemented how do parrots in the wild get it? I mean, they obviously must produce it themselves, right? Because I know for a fact they don't go around eating their own poop... but then, they are exposed to more bacteria than the normal pet parrot (the average owner usually disinfecting everything to the point of sterility which I have always said is not good for any animal).

By the way, I did find something that was probably used for the colon reference: http://veganhealth.org/b12/int

I still would like to know what tielfan feeds, how long she has been doing it and whether she breeds.

[tielfan]

Here's some information that Wolf might be interested in. I took a quick look at the biochemistry of sex hormone production, and dietary amino acids don't appear to play any direct role in the process whatsoever. Testosterone and estrogen are derived from cholesterol, which is derived primarily from Acetyl-CoA. LH and FSH are glycoproteins which are synthesized in the body from polyribosomes and sugars. None of these substances are composed of dietary amino acids. A severe deficiency of dietary protein would cause health problems that could have an adverse effect on fertility, but there's no obvious way that the amount of protein in the diet would have any other effect on sex hormone levels. A lot of the links below are from Wikipedia not a fancy source, but they appear to be essentially correct.

General information on sex hormone synthesis: http://www.pathophys.org/sexhormones/

Testosterone biochemistry: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Testosterone#Biochemistry

Estrogen biosynthesis: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Estrogen#Biosynthesis

Cholesterol synthesis: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cholesterol#Biosynthesis

Acetyl-CoA https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Acetyl-CoA

LH & FSH: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/3130893

Glycoproteins: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Glycoprotein

Glycoprotein synthesis: http://themedicalbiochemistrypage.org/glycoproteins.php

[Wolf]

I don't have the opportunity to read these all right now, but I have them all saved so that I can read them. Thank you very much for the links.

[tielfan]

Thank you Wolf for your comments. You seem to have a genuine interest in the subject I've been trying to discuss here, and a desire to look at the general principles involved (the big picture) not the petty details. It's a refreshing change from the previous tone of the conversation, and it's unfortunate that you don't have time and lost your links. I feel like I could have had a productive discussion with you.

I think I need to point out one more thing. As mentioned earlier, the expert panel recommendations call for a minimum of 12% crude protein in the diet for all parrots, indicating that this level is considered to be safe for all. There are indications that 10-15% is the minimum requirement for at least some of the larger parrots. 10-15% is also the range found in many seed mixes, and 12-15% is the usual amount in "maintenance" pellets, indicating that this range has been approved at the professional level. The protein content of the gloop recipe has not been disclosed, but if it's less than 10% you're flirting with protein deficiency. If the protein level is in the 10-15% range then it has the same amount of protein as a lot of seed mixes, but with a higher level of complete protein because of the beans. If seed mixes and gloop have similar protein levels then the warnings about the alleged high protein level in seeds would also apply to gloop.

I hope this will help you see the inconsistency in the recommendations that were made in this thread, because you really ought to apply the same standards to foods with similar protein content. It's also important to consider the amount of complete protein that's being provided because that's what really matters more. BTW 'high potency' pellets and handfeeding formulas generally have crude protein levels in the 17-22% range, which gives us an idea of the desired level for 'extra needs' situations. It's expected that these professionally formulated products will deliver more complete protein than a high-fat seed mix with 18% protein.

[JessiMuse]

Animals produce it themselves through a chemical reaction of cholesterol on the skin and direct sunlight but, as parrots are not normally exposed to direct sun on a daily basis and you shouldn't really feed them animal products (at least, not all the time), you always have to supplement

What if you're able to open a window? All the openable windows in my house have screens, so they wouldn't be able to escape, lest they chew through it. Would screens allow the UV to come through when windows usually don't? Or would that be a bad idea?

[Wolf]

Jessemuse : I really wish that I could say that opening the window would solve the problem, but as far as I know, here in the US. most of the window screens wire or fiber are treated to block UV from entering the home.

teilfan : so far all of the blood work that was done on my birds after being fed gloop for 6 months or longer have all come back very good. One of them did lead me to alter the recipe a little as it showed too high of a cholesterol level in one of my birds. I was adding some of the pretty pastas made with different vegetables in my gloop at the time.

I have been trying to locate a program that I could download to compute the nutritional values of the gloop recipes that I am using but have not been able to do so thus far. I wanted to have a protein level of between 10 and 14% as that was the lowest safe level of protein that I could work out with the limited information that I could find.

Among other things that I have noticed with captive parrots is that even with a more natural light schedule and trying to keep the level of protein down to a maintenance level that their are still a lot of birds being hormonal when they should not be and birds beginning puberty too early based upon when they reach this stage in their natural environment. I can only attribute this to diet. It could just be that they have adequate nutrition all of the time or it could be due to the contents of the food, nutritionally speaking. This has prompted me to question much of what I have already learned and was working on learning more about the effects of fats, carbs and triglycerides in their diets.

I know that many of my posts have been related to the effects of protein on the birds breeding cycles and this is due to the physical changes that occur when the birds body goes into breeding condition and then remains in that state for long periods of time after they should have no longer been in breeding condition, but for me this encompasses so much more than just this one aspect.

I blame all of this on my Kiki bird. She is a Senegal parrot that arrived here on her own one cold spring morning after escaping from an abusive previous home demanding to be let in. At the time the only thing that I knew was that she was some sort of parrot and that if I did not let her in that she would die as she was a tropical bird and could not tolerate temperature below freezing for long. It took me 3 weeks to a month to learn what kind of parrot that she was and to really begin to learn what other than birdseed to feed her. I constantly ran into all kinds of information that contradicted each other that I decided to research it myself. And so it began. Although she was very mean to me for close to a year, she is now one of my sweetest birds who wants nothing more than to spend most of her time on me. I want to do the best for her and all of the other birds that I now have in my care. This is why I study so much and keep looking for more, better and newer information about their nutrition. The end result of this is that I am not overly attached to anything that I have learned and I don't care where it leads me. All of my birds came to me from poor situations and they really deserve the best that I can provide for them. We have a variety of animals and they are not pets, they are all my friends and members of my family. I just thought that you might be interested in my motivation in all of this.

[Pajarita]

Here's some information that Wolf might be interested in. I took a quick look at the biochemistry of sex hormone production, and dietary amino acids don't appear to play any direct role in the process whatsoever. Testosterone and estrogen are derived from cholesterol, which is derived primarily from Acetyl-CoA. LH and FSH are glycoproteins which are synthesized in the body from polyribosomes and sugars. None of these substances are composed of dietary amino acids. A severe deficiency of dietary protein would cause health problems that could have an adverse effect on fertility, but there's no obvious way that the amount of protein in the diet would have any other effect on sex hormone levels. A lot of the links below are from Wikipedia not a fancy source, but they appear to be essentially correct.

General information on sex hormone synthesis: http://www.pathophys.org/sexhormones/

Testosterone biochemistry: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Testosterone#Biochemistry

Estrogen biosynthesis: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Estrogen#Biosynthesis

Cholesterol synthesis: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cholesterol#Biosynthesis

Acetyl-CoA https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Acetyl-CoA

LH & FSH: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/3130893

Glycoproteins: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Glycoprotein

Glycoprotein synthesis: http://themedicalbiochemistrypage.org/glycoproteins.php

The link between diet and sexual hormone production is not directly related to the sexual hormones themselves but to the gonadotropin hormone production. See on the first link you listed where it says that the hypothalamus releases LH and FSH? Well, the link is the trigger that makes the hypothalamus start releasing them. In humans, it's continuous and cyclical but birds are different. See this: http://people.eku.edu/ritchisong/avianreproduction.html
As you can see on the link, they use different triggers: light (photoperiodism), food and weather (the 'ambiental visual clues' - but they think that weather is directly related to food phenology so both might be one and the same).

The links you provided are all about human data but, although you can use it for many things, reproduction is one of those subjects that is completely different because humans have continuous with cyclical spikes of gonadotropin hormone production while aves have only cyclical production of it (triggered by photoperiodism and ambiental clues) PLUS production of gonadotropin-inhibiting hormone which stops production of sexual hormones. See this: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/ar ... 2214001095
this: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/ar ... 160500035X
and this: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3378827/

Evolution dictated that, in order for species to survive, they need to be able to reproduce successfully so different mechanisms are used for this. One of the most important ones is that the species reproduces when conditions are ideal so it takes into consideration things like plentiful food (and here is the link you were looking for) and good weather (and this is where photoperiodism comes in with the different points of photorefractoriness for different species and why we have parrots that are long day breeders as well as short day breeders) as well as, for example, the rate of reproduction in prey species so animals that suffer great losses of babies produce many more and more often and their babies are either superprecocial (like the meagapodes) or precocial (like galliformes and anseriformes) while species that don't suffer as many losses tend to produce altricial, limited numbers and not so often (like most large psittacines) because they require more and longer care from the parents .

[Pajarita]

Thank you Wolf for your comments. You seem to have a genuine interest in the subject I've been trying to discuss here, and a desire to look at the general principles involved (the big picture) not the petty details. It's a refreshing change from the previous tone of the conversation, and it's unfortunate that you don't have time and lost your links. I feel like I could have had a productive discussion with you.

I think I need to point out one more thing. As mentioned earlier, the expert panel recommendations call for a minimum of 12% crude protein in the diet for all parrots, indicating that this level is considered to be safe for all. There are indications that 10-15% is the minimum requirement for at least some of the larger parrots. 10-15% is also the range found in many seed mixes, and 12-15% is the usual amount in "maintenance" pellets, indicating that this range has been approved at the professional level. The protein content of the gloop recipe has not been disclosed, but if it's less than 10% you're flirting with protein deficiency. If the protein level is in the 10-15% range then it has the same amount of protein as a lot of seed mixes, but with a higher level of complete protein because of the beans. If seed mixes and gloop have similar protein levels then the warnings about the alleged high protein level in seeds would also apply to gloop.

I hope this will help you see the inconsistency in the recommendations that were made in this thread, because you really ought to apply the same standards to foods with similar protein content. It's also important to consider the amount of complete protein that's being provided because that's what really matters more. BTW 'high potency' pellets and handfeeding formulas generally have crude protein levels in the 17-22% range, which gives us an idea of the desired level for 'extra needs' situations. It's expected that these professionally formulated products will deliver more complete protein than a high-fat seed mix with 18% protein.

Can you, please, give us a link to this expert panel recommendation? Because the only one I know of is this one: http://lafeber.com/vet/expert-panel-on- ... nutrition/ which dates to 1998 and lumps all psittacine species together so I am thinking that you must be referring to a more current one. This one is not only 18 years old but the fact that it used captive birds to determine values and did not even give different guidelines for different species makes it very iffy. Because, for example, since then, we have learned that African species require more protein than South American ones while ekkies, for example, need even lower protein and almost nutrient poor food to flourish. We've also learned that conures and amazons do better with lower protein that, say, macaws even though they are all South American. And it would interest you to know that although High Potency used to have a warning on the label stating that it should be used only for sick birds or transitioning them from a bad diet, the warning has since disappeared and is now been recommended as daily maintenance (and, unfortunately, even ekkie owners are using it!).

The gloop protein level is actually quite easy to figure out if you don't mind approximations - because, obviously, for exact values, you would need to follow a very strict formula every single time and that is not something that happens when you are talking homemade. But then, on the other hand, pellets don't give exact values, either... The gloop I am now making has about 12 % protein but very little fat and lots of fiber and moisture as well as natural vitamins and minerals (which is, pretty much, the composition that parrots eat in the wild -as far as we know which, I grant you, it's not anywhere near enough!) but, during the breeding season, I lower it a bit (I switch some grains and add more produce to it) but as they do get a seed/nut mix for dinner and I add hemp and insect protein, they do end up getting more protein (I try to follow nature's seasons up and downs so as to keep their endocrine system in tune with them).

Can you, please, tell me what you feed and whether you breed your tiels as well as the light schedule you follow? I am very interested in your answer to the best way of feeding.

[tielfan]

Hi Wolf, there are a lot of factors that influence the hormone levels in birds, which basically boil down to good conditions for breeding. Protein sources do play a role since growing chicks need a lot of protein, but it seems to be a relatively small piece of the puzzle.

In the wild, nature places a lot of limitations on breeding due to unfavorable weather conditions and skimpy food supply during a large chunk of the year. The conditions in a human home are a lot more stable - the temperature is never too hot or too cold, there's always enough food, the daylight schedule is what we want it to be, and there's protection from predators so the bottom of the cage seems like a safe enough place to lay eggs if nothing better is available. We provide decent breeding conditions all the time so it's not surprising that pet birds are hot to trot more often than they would be in the wild.

Day length and the quantity of food seem to be the biggest factors. Long days provide more foraging time, as well as warmer temperatures (which is good for the growth of plant foods and the safety of chicks as long as it doesn't get too hot). I can keep my birds' hormone levels under control using day length alone. As far as the quality of the food is concerned, having a lot of soft food available is thought to be very important since it's easier for chicks to digest. Adult birds can create soft food by eating hard food and drinking water, but this takes more processing time. Chicks need a lot of protein and a lot of calories to support their growth so it's desirable to have both in the diet, but this comes along somewhat automatically with having a lot of food available.

In some ways the gloop is actually a better breeding food than dry seed, because it's softer and has better-quality protein content. Oil seeds like sunflower will probably provide more calories than gloop, but grain-type seeds like millet are probably about the same.

Rain is a breeding trigger for a lot of small Australian Outback species, since it makes the grass grow and leads to a plentiful supply of unripe grass seed around the time the babies hatch. A lot of pet bird books attribute rain-inspired breeding solely to the abundance of soft food, but there might be more to it than that. A study on the breeding diet of wild zebra finches found that unripe grass seed has more lysine in it than mature seed, which means that it provides more complete protein than dry seed does. They also noted that the faster processing time for soft food helped improve protein extraction. http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1 ... x/abstract

[tielfan]

P.S. I'm sorry, but I probably ought to tell you that I've stopped reading Pajarita's posts, so she can stop wasting time trying to talk to me. Her response to my B12 post was a perfect example of why I feel that it's unproductive to talk to her. My post seems to have been read primarily with an eye to finding something to nitpick, and it wasn't noticed that I dismissed the complaint before it was even made. Meanwhile the main point of my post seems to have sailed by unnoticed. That's what my entire experience of talking to her has been like, and I'm tired of it.

BTW the Klasing book is about all bird species. It talks about the needs of everything from hummingbirds to seagulls to ostriches and yes, parrots are in there too. The early part of the book has a lengthy discussion of where bacterial fermentation takes place in the avian digestive tract (including the use and non-use of ceca), but I used a quote from page 314 because it was short and more direct. When Klasing doesn't mention an exception to a general requirement it means there are no known exceptions. He says that birds require B12 in the diet, period, and he's well aware of the role played by internal production. Every avian medical text that I've seen says B12 is required, the expert panel set a minimum dietary B12 level, and all 'complete' pellets add it to their product. So the expert consensus seems to be that it's necessary, and they don't want to force birds to rely on poop-eating to get what they need. There's a different approach when internal production is enough to do the job. These same sources don't mention vitamin C except to say that most birds don't need it because they can make their own (but supplementation helps in some circumstances).