Diet Conversion Journey

[seagoatdeb]

yeah they love hot chiles all right and for some reason they are compelled to touch my lips after eating them...lol....

[seagoatdeb]

Well I have finaly figured out how to keep Sunny from landing on my plate while I am eating. With Gaugan, whenever I ate, I would give her a little something that was good for her, if my food wasnt. She is fine with that. Not Sunny, he wants to eat what is on my plate and thinks I should share it, so he will just drop what I gave him if it didnt come off my plate. so now on a corner of my plate I put what I will give him that is good for him, and it is working....yippeee

[seagoatdeb]

Gail, I don't feed spinach to any of my birds. It's too high in oxalic acid and iron (oxalic acid inhibiting calcium absorption and birds needing very little iron makes spinach not really desirable when it comes to a parrot's diet). And, stick around, more trivia to come

The debate about what parrots evolved to eat is always a good thing because I do firmly believe that the closer we can get to what their original natural diet was, the better off they will be BUT we need to take into consideration that wild parrots have been eating grains cultivated by man for, literally, thousands of years (agriculture started in 8,500 BC and the first domesticated wheat appeared in 8,000 BC). Parrots been, like the greatest majority of birds, opportunistic feeders, they would have started eating them as soon as the first fields were ripe enough. And this doesn't only apply to grains, either. Peanuts are from South America (to be more exact, the original wild plant came from Northwest Argentina and Southwest Bolivia) but they have been cultivated in Africa since the mid 1800's and it has become one of the wild Senegal parrots main source of protein - like I said, opportunistic feeders. I am sure there are no studies about the short and/or long term consequences of parrots eating grains but I would think this is mainly because it's an accepted staple in their diet simply by means of observation. Everybody who has lived in a country where there are wild parrots knows that they eat the grain off the fields. Even people who live in the cities know this because of the constant complaints of the farmers about it. And, anybody who has followed or studied wild flocks also knows that they have proliferated in the areas where there are grain fields so I would think that parrots eating grains in the wild and not been unduly affected by it is, pretty much, an accepted fact.

Now, I do agree with you, Seagoatdeb, that there is a possibility that the 'inflated' gluten content of domesticated wheat strains might not be as healthy as they are supposed to be for parrots. Again, there is no scientific evidence that there are birds that are gluten intolerant and observation does not seem to point to it but based on the material that you provided on a previous discussion and some more research I did on my own, I decided to replace most of the wheat I use in my gloop for kamut, spelt and freekeh. I don't think that feeding whole wheat is bad for them but if I can offer them something that could be the tiniest bit better or safer in the long term, I do.

I dont have any problem with feeding grains, but it is only in high amounts that I question. For example in cows, they found that feeding them a high grain diet made them grow faster and produce more but after many generations we are now seeing the cows are living shorter lives when fed on high grain, and long lives when fed on grass. The difference in the nutrition of the meat is showing a lot too. Parrots may have eaten grains in the farmers field, and had the fast growth and productivity that cows did, and have other health probems because of it. I think it is something we need to at least look at.

[Pajarita]

Well, I would think that one needs to take into consideration that cows were never meant to eat grains to begin with. This is the main difference between extensive and intensive stockbreeding. In US, they practice intensive (keep the cows in sheds and feed them commercial rations as well as hormones and antibiotics) while, in my country, for example, they practice extensive (the cows are out on the fields all their lives and eat nothing but the grass that grows on them. Needless to say, beef from the extensive method is much, much healthier (leaner, less cholesterol) and tastier than the one from the intensive one. But parrots are all, to a larger or lesser extent, seed and grain eaters so when one feeds them grains is not so much a matter of feeding them something they were never really meant to eat... and they been doing it for many years. I was reading yesterday accounts from a Spanish naturalist on the Patagonian conure and they were observed eating grains 200 years ago. But I do agree that a parrot diet has to have more produce than grains, seeds or nuts and that's why I chose gloop, raw produce and seeds/nuts over pellets.

[galeriagila]

A question... I have learned now that cheese and such is off-limits, butttttt...
How about no-fat cheese, or no-fat cottage cheese or yogurt.
He loves that stuff so much!!!!

[seagoatdeb]

Milk product are not good for parrots, so its not just the fat content.

The only one i have seen people fight over is yogurt, some claim that they can digest yogurt and some say not.

[Wolf]

The problem with dairy products is lactose, birds can't process it. The hard cheeses seem to have most of it removed naturally in the process of making and curing the cheese and they can get away with having a little bit once in a while, just reserve it for very special occasions so that you don't give them too much. Some of my birds get a small piece of provolone or sharp cheddar about every six weeks or so. I never give them yogurt, I won't even touch the stuff, or any of the soft cheeses and never American cheese as that is nothing but chemicals, in my opinion. I used to make long burning candles out of blocks of American cheese and once knew a guy who built a house out of blocks of it.

[galeriagila]

Thanks, friends!
I guess I'll have to look into those beady little eyes and JUST SAY NO. I'm a big girl, I can do it! If it's so questionable, I think I'll avoid it. Really, it's more a matter of not eating it in front of him... that's when he gives me the stink-eye!
I'll hide out to eat my dairy goodies. He doesn't have to know EVERYTHING.
My thanks again.

[galeriagila]

Okay, I know it seems like I'm constantly trying to wheedle permission to feed naughty foods, but I have a little 9 ounce bully on my back! Shoulder, actually.
Is peanut butter okay? I have had the habit of letting him share a sandwich once in a while...

[Pajarita]

I don't feed it to any of my birds because I would have to get an entire jar of the all natural, nothing added one (most add sugar and emulsifiers like hydrogenated oil) for just a tiny bit every now and then which would not be practical. What I do is, every now and then and as a very special treat, I give them a single human grade, roasted peanut in the shell.