Advice on Senegal Parrot Diet

[brhino]

Hello all,

I am a new owner of a Senegal Parrot and I am looking for some advice on a diet and feeding schedule for my bird. The store that I bought the bird from fed him a seed/dried fruit and veggie mix that I am trying to determine if I want to continue. This base diet was supposedly supplemented with fresh, warmed veggies as well.

When I spoke to the woman at the store that was selling the bird, she assured me that the mix would supply a good balance of nutrients required for the health of the bird. I would believe this is true, except my parrot seems to be a picky eater and most of the food I give him (especially dried berries) ends up at the bottom of his cage. This initially lead me to believe that the mix was bad for the bird, but birds can be messy right? After watching him eat multiple times, I deduced that he favors eating the sunflower seeds/peanuts immediately while the other ingredients are thrown out unless he is really hungry. In addition to the seed/fruit/veggie mix, I have been offering him a variety of fresh foods such as kiwi, banana, apple, raw/cooked carrot, raw/cooked sweet potato, mustard/collard/turnip greens, blueberry, blackberry, and strawberry. The only of these fresh foods that he has taken to is apple, which I am wary of overfeeding due to high sugar content. I am going to stay vigilant in my fresh food offerings in hope that he will eventually take to his veggies and fruits but in the meantime I would like to develop a better understanding of my birds nutritional needs. Along with this, I am also trying to figure out if I should ween my bird towards a pelleted base diet supplemented with fruits and veggies that I have mentioned above or not.

The schedule that I have been trying is as follows:

Feed mix in the morning around 7:30-8:00 am. I usually just cover the bottom of his food bowl (which is of adequate size) so that he is not able to gorge himself throughout the day as he likes. Some days he pecks a bit and does not seem to eat a whole lot at once, some days he seems like he is furiously attempting to eat but he still throws much of the food out to make way for the sunflowers. I guess this is dependent on what is in the bowl at the time. I should mention that I withhold certain fruits in the mix like dried pineapple, mango(? its orange?) and banana to use as treats.

Stop in from work around noon to see if the little fella has gone hungry or if he is alright. If his food is empty I just re-cover the bottom of the bowl with the mix again. It seems like this past week he has had food in his bowl when I have come home. Maybe I am not feeding him a consistent amount in the mornings or he simply isn't eating like he should because he doesn't want what I give him?

Dinner around 5:30 or so. This is when I try to offer fresh foods because I have the time to cut things up or cook. I have found that he LOVES apple, but I don't want to get him all jacked up on sugar before bed so I am trying to get him to eat other foods as well. I think I just need more time to get him accustomed to other stuff, but I don't want to continually reinforce his sunflower/apple habit in the mean time just to be comforted in knowing that he has eaten.

This was meant to be a relatively open ended post and I would like to discuss the diet and schedule I have mentioned above with other owners of parrots that have experience with this sort of issue. In addition, if others could share with me an example diet that they follow so I can learn, I would be very appreciative.

Thanks all,

Brian

[Wolf]

Well Brian and Petrie, this is a forum which kind of makes all topics open to discussion as that is the very nature of a forum, I think. Also everything that anyone shares with you should be accepted only as their opinion and any how-to's should be read as a suggestion. In addition to these things, one should take any and all information presented as something that you as Petrie's caregiver can and should research on your own as you have the time to do so. It is my opinion that this is probably the way to get the most benefit from any forum. At present there are no experts on parrots other than the parrot itself and they don't always tell us everything that they know.

The problem with all seed or seed/nut mixes, with or without dried fruits or vegetable matter in it is exactly what you have noted, they pick through it and eat their favorite thins first and tossing everything else out of the way. They will go back through it later and again eat their next favored items from it. Even with the mix formulated to provide optimal nutrition this predilection for eating their favorites first does in fact change the actual nutrition that they receive from this food. There are still some things that feeding a seed mix is great for beginning with satisfaction as birds like to enjoy their foods and seem to consider it as more than just something to eat. I have seen that many of them really like the process of picking through the mix and the activity of removing the hulls from the seeds and shells from the nuts. Neither pellets or fresh produce can provide this for them, only nuts and seeds can do this. The things that the bird picks out of the mix first are its favorite items and as a general rule, I remove them from the mix, at least the top two items and reserve them for training. Usually these items are also the ones that are the highest in protein and fats, both of which we need to control in our birds diets.

When ordering my birds seed mix I shy away from those containing any dried fruit in them and the reason is the chemicals used to preserve the look of the fruit as it is bad for the bird. Dried fruit that is reasonably safe for the bird is really ugly to look at and usually all brown, it just does not look like anything that I would want to eat. so in the end I prefer to purchase a simple seed mix, that does not contain any sunflower seeds in it or at best only a small amount of them, as it is easier for me to purchase the sunflower seeds and the nuts for them separately than it is to sort through the mix and pick them out. I only feed my birds the seed mix for their evening meal and I add however many nut or sunflower seeds that I want them to have at that time.

I really like the whole idea behind the manufacture of pellets for my birds as this is a food item that there is very little waste with and the bird must eat some of everything in the pellets as it can't pick them out. This alone can provide for a better level of nutrition for our birds. But then they start screwing everything good about them up with all of the cheap and questionable things that they put in them as well as all of the artificial vitamins and minerals that the bird can't properly utilize in their body and then they add further insult and injury by the chemical preservatives and funny colors, dyes that are known carcenogens and such. The end result for me is that I do not feed pellets to any of my birds.

Overall, I am not very happy with any of the manufactured food products for our birds, but like everyone else, I have to feed my birds something and It needs to meet their nutritional requirements. There are both advantages and disadvantages in every way that I have found to feed my birds whether it is a manufactured product or if it is a food that I prepare myself or if it is just chopped up fruits and veggies.

In the end, I do a lot of research and this is an ongoing thing as we are constantly learning new things about our birds and their dietary needs. I ended up with feeding my birds fresh raw fruits and vegetables, a home made food item that I learned about here on this forum which is called gloop and a good quality seed mix to which I add a certain amount of sunflower seed and / or nuts to depending on the species of the parrot that is eating it. My gloop tends to vary depending on what is available at the time of year when I am making it as well as how much it costs. I try to maintain my gloop to consist of 40% partly cooked whole grains( 4 to 5 different ones), 40% mixed vegetables ( I tend to purchase these frozen), and 20% white beans and lentils. There are several recipes in the health, diet and nutrition section of this forum.

My birds begin the day with either a fresh fruit, a fresh vegetable and a fresh leafy green or two fresh vegetables and a leafy green, it depends on the species of bird, my Senegal gets one of each a fruit, a veggie and a leafy green. Then about an hour later they get fed the main part of their diet which is the gloop, then they usually get an almond, part of an almond or even two almonds for treats during the day and this is finished off by their seed mix in the evening. This seed mix is removed after they go to sleep for the night.

These are some of my thoughts about feeding my birds when and what I feed them and I hope that you and Petrie find it to be both useful and helpful.

[brhino]

Hey Wolf,

Thanks for the informative reply to my original post. I had been doing a bit of research on the pros and cons of using pellets vs seed mixes and it seems that you are quite correct in saying that all means of feeding have pros and cons. Obviously it is impossible to emulate a parrot's natural eating habits but as Petrie's caregiver I want to make sure that I am able to make an informed decision about the different feeding options I have. I actually had never heard of gloop before this post, but after your mention of gloop I was able to search this forum and find some recipes that sounded useful! I am going to try making some of this stuff soon. As for now, I am going to continue using a seed mix for a meal or as a supplement of sorts but I am going to have to remove the sunflowers to use as treats I believe. I was removing some of the fruits that he liked but I think it would be better to leave them in and use the sunflowers as treats instead. What made you settle on this schedule for your bird? Like specifically, why fruits in the morn and seeds at night? Was this something that was just convenient for you and enjoyable for the bird or was there some sort of other reason that you settled on that schedule?

I am interested in hearing back from you.

[Wolf]

Actually it is a combination of things, but the factors that had the most impact on my choices are that in the winter months my birds go to roost earlier in the evenng and wake up later in the mornings and this is a long time to go without eating and birds don't eat while they sleep. Protein and fat in the foods take longer to digest and so they supply energy to the sleeping bird longer than any other foods. Seeds are deficient in essential amino acids but still have a reasonable amount of incomplete proteins and a lot of fats and carbohydrates. Then no matter what the bird eats before sleeping it is naturally at its hungriest when it first wakes up. I think that it is good to use their natural processes to help train then and since most of them need to be taught or trained to eat their fruits and vegetables this is one of the best times to eat these foods in front of it and get the bird to want a bite of the new food enough to try and take it from me. That is taken from how the parent birds teach their offspring to eat foods in the wild and I figure that they know how to do this better than any human would.