Commercial Foods & questions..

[flappybird]

What do you all think about the grand variety of packaged seed/pellet/dried veggies/ random stuff mixes out there? To put the question in perspective, I would say that normally I ignore that kind of product, and don't think it's necessary. I'm also not that experienced in bird-keeping, although I've read a lot in an attempt to be informed. It's just hard not to wonder when I recieve a Fosters & Smith mail catalogue with a wide variety of mixes (of which I only pay attention to the ones with "real fruits & veggies", "no artificial coloring added", "no sugar added". Should I be incorporating any of these in my Pionus' diet?

I feed chop/gloop, twice a day, and supplement with a few pieces of coarse Harrison's pellets almost daily. I have a seed mix (Higgin's Safflower gold) which I honestly just use for treats, and most of the time I just pick the safflowers out of them because she won't eat the other grains / seeds alone. She does like the pellet-like pieces in there... but the point is I never just give her a bowlful of the stuff. I use it so infrequently I'm afraid I'll never run out. I also have a bag of nutri-berries that is nowhere near running out for the same reason. I'm still wondering if I'm feeding too little, or if I should be buying products like "Sunseed Vita Prima Diets" or "Kaytee treat sticks" / "Vitakraft Sticks"..

I'm paranoid of making my Pionus' life about food, but I also wonder if she should have more food toys in her cage during the day while I'm gone. She doesn't pay much attention to regular toys, I've only found two things she will shred: cardboard boxes (she likes to attack them viciously and simultaneously pretend they are her nests" and dried yucca hanging toys. Her current foraging toys consist of a hanging arrangement of half-heartedly covered plastic cups which present no challenge, a rubber, cheese-holed ball the color of circus peanuts that she can pick food out of pretty quickly (she loves that one), and and clear, 5 compartment spinner that she cannot figure out how to actually use, but will pick out food when she realizes that the hole is over something she wants.

I'm worried that I'm not enriching her life enough. Should I have more beak conditioning items, like mineral blocks and cuttlebones? Should I feed her more seed mixes with lots of different shapes and seeds to shell?

On a related note:
I want to also have more quality time with her when I'm home but she doesn't seem to be in to doing anything. Our training sessions (which don't happen every day because I lack discipline) don't ever seem that rewarding, and while she's not afraid of training, she does always seem really fidgety and not comfortable.

[Wolf]

Love your question and I wish that I had an easy answer for you, but I don't and I am not sure that anyone else does either. What to feed our parrots is a difficult question to answer with any real accuracy and in some areas people who keep parrots are sharply divided such as the pellet vs. seed portion of this question, making it a very controversial topic to try and discuss calmly.

I feed my parrots fresh produce in the mornings along with gloop and I supply enough to last them all day long and then in addition to a few tree nut treats during the day I feed a seed mix to them for their dinner.

I try very hard to avoid products containing soy and artificial colors, preservatives, artificial vitamins and minerals, added sugars and just about anything that I can't pronounce or don't know what is. I also avoid foods such as rice because it contains a high level of arsenic.

I try to research all of the foods that I give them and try to keep both protein and fat levels down and try to watch the levels of carbohydrates as well. All of this is difficult enough all by itself and for me this is further complicated by the fact that none of the foods that we actually feed our birds are the same foods that they would be eating if they were in their natural environments. Even when we do have information on the foods that they do eat in their natural habitat we still don't have any real information on what percentage of these foods that they do eat at what time of the year.

For my birds, I try to feed them as many natural foods as I can, while trying to avoid those that were grown with high levels of pesticides, chemical fertilizers, or those that are now GMO's, and really the only commercial bird foods that I actually rely on are the seed mixes that I use for them. I hope that I am doing right by them, but since I have to purchase most of the foods that they eat, I can't really be sure. Most of the foods they get are the same foods that I prepare for myself, at least the fruits and vegetables as I don't by premade foods and I do not feed them meats.

This is what I do in order to try and give my birds the best diet that I can. I will just leave it up to others to say how they approach this issue.

On to your other concerns. I spend a lot of time with my birds although I do not normally spend a lot of time with training sessions and my birds don't do a lot other than to wander about and look for something to chew on or to find dark places that they might want to turn into a better nesting area than what I provide for them in their cages. The rest of the time they are happy to just hang out on or near me just preening me or talking to me in their language and in the words that they have learned. We listen to a lot of music as they love music and like to sing along and dance to the music. I have seven birds and I try to keep up with making toys that they can forage with or ones that they can destroy at will. Still their biggest thing is to perch on me and just relax and hang out.

[Pajarita]

It is, indeed, a great question - as well as one that would prompt all different kinds of replies.

Personally, I always keep in mind that the pet food industry is NOT regulated so a manufacturer can claim anything and, even when it's not true, you can't even sue them. To make things harder on us, there are guidelines for dogs and cats nutrition but none for parrots.

I don't buy any seed mix that has fruits or veggies in it. I don't care if the mix and produce in it is 100% organic and not treated with sulfites, the mere fact that they are dehydrated makes them a no-no for my birds because, in my mind, anything that deviates so sharply from the unusually high level of moisture in their natural diet couldn't possibly be good for them in the long run. It took us many, many years to recognize the error of our ways with cats kibble diets (which we now know cause kidney problems in the long run) and I don't feel comfortable experimenting with my birds. So I feed gloop (not chop - although nowadays some people think they are synonyms) with raw produce for breakfast and all day picking and a good quality (and fresh -I buy small quantities so they are all gone in a matter of a couple of weeks because I am always afraid of aspergillus and aflatoxin problems) seed mix to which I add roasted tree nuts for the larger species for dinner. I have been doing this for many, many years and my parrots not only do well, the ones that came with health issues got better on it.

I also don't buy any commercial treats. For one thing, I don't trust them and, for another, I don't think they are necessary. My parrots favorite thing in the entire world is birdy bread which I make myself (real easy too because I use a bread machine so I just dump everything in the bowl after I am done cleaning my kitchen at night, turn it on and, in the morning, fresh baked birdy bread - and I can be frozen!). Today was birdy bread for breakfast and you should have seen those parrots when I said "PAN!" to them this morning - they go crazy! Even the mean amazons beg like puppies for it On occasion and when I feel inspired, I also bake them birdy cookies which they also love (they know the word "Cookie", too ) and they can be used as treats or rewards for training.

As to toys.... well, I kind of think they are more for our benefit than theirs. My parrots are pretty much like yours, give them something to chew on and they are happy. And I don't do training sessions at all. I just go along and correct or ask for something whenever is appropriate the same way I would do with a small child.

[seagoatdeb]

Sound like you have the food working really well for your paarrot and put a lot of thought into it.

I am not familiar with Blue Headed Pionus, and one way of enriching is using toys. Most parrots love certain kinds of toys and need them. My two pois love anything they can climb all over and chew on parts of and they especially like toys they can hang upside down. they also love foraging toys, and both at various times will spend an hour or more working on a foraging toy and taking things out of it. My Red belly especially likes toys she can climb everywhere on and experience every part of it and has pine slabs on it so she can stop what she was doing to chew when in the mood. My meyers, likes to fly back and forth on toys and play a little here and a little there, his attention span is shorter than Gaugans, early in the day, and he is calmer in the afternoon.

Right now, my two pois are fighting over a certain "toy" it is a hanging toy that I made that is a combination of a round rope on the bottom and a triangle is attached above it by three ropes, and is made out of lilac branches. Lots of chewables and harder things than a poi can chew are attached to hang, on the top to give Gaugan a place to sleep, that is dark inside when she is sleeping at night outside her cage. I made one for Sunnny closer to his cage for him to be in the dark when he sleeps outside his cage but Gaugans is apparently the "best" one....lol...

My daughters conure loves plastic hanging toys, and wood ones of every kind, big and small, and is always doing all kind of "antics" on them. My Red Belly has been really obsessed with a wicker stand of mine, so I just made her a toy out of a wicker basket, that is full of fun things to explore and chew on and i am hoping she willl decide she prefers that.

One thing both my parrots like, as a fun interaction between us is to be on my shoulder and just go to a different room and look out the window. Even just hanging out on my knee, when I watch TV can be fun for them, and of course hanging out on my open laptop, is a big favorite, i am constantly trying to catch poop that trickles down my screen....lol

[flappybird]

Thanks for the responses. That makes me feel better... I don't trust the commercial treats either, I feel like they are full of too much of everything in addition to probably way too much sugar. They just do a good job of looking so fun that it makes me wonder...

Pajarita and Wolf - you both said that you use a good quality seed mix for dinner. Is that everyday or occasionally? I gave luna a tbsp of that Higgins mix I have for a dinner a couple times this week for a change. She really loves getting seeds and she makes a bunch of really great noises that she doesn't do unless she is eating seeds. Do anyone else's birds do that? A few of those noises she used to make a few months ago whenever one of us came home and greeted each other. I feel like she used to have significantly more variety in her vocalizations but has since stopped. This is sort of a tangent... but she used to also make a squeaking noise that sounded very much like she was imitating my "night night!" phrase when putting her to bed... but she quit doing that too. She's changed so much since we got her in August.

I am also relieved to hear that your parrots also like to just hang out and relax. Specifically concerning what Wolf said about his birds wandering about finding dark places to hide / pretend nest in... I was under the impression that this was to be discouraged at all times because it encourages hormonal / nesting behaviors that can lead to frustration and other problems... but she LOVES exploring the folds of the couch blanket, or the space right behind a pillow.. she LOVES going in the bedroom closet and hopping around the dark shelves. The only problem I see with these instances is that she seems to get a bit too protective when she's in dim, cozy spaces. When she's under a blanket she also gets really "bitey" and I'm afraid to leave her there because she'll probably bite me or my hands.

Along the same lines.. she loves boxes, and I am inclined to give her more boxes to play with but then I remember reading how that's bad for the same reasons. Luna lunges and squawks aggressively whenever I approach her with a box, Harrison's pellets, or a jar of pepitas. Apparently she does this with the things she loves the most, and it's the only behavior she does that actually spooks me every time. She's been doing it more and more lately. She's also more "bitey" in general. It's what I mean when I say she's changed a lot since we got her. I've also picked up on the fact that we're in a hormonal season for parrots.. maybe this has a lot to do with it.

Let me know if I should continue this topic in a different category..

[Wolf]

You are fine with continuing to post here, you can start a new thread if you want to, but this one is fine, none of the threads on this forum stay strictly on topic for very long.

Yes, it is normal behavior for them to look for dark places, they do it because they are looking for a good, safe nesting area. Sometimes this is nothing to get concerned about and sometimes it is something that you will need to discourage. Sometimes it only needs to be discouraged or limited for part of the years such as at mating season. If your bird starts getting aggressive and territorial in these dark little cubbies then you need to discourage them from finding these places as they are hormonal and the dark places are not helping you.

Kookooloo, CAG, loves dark places to explore, but she has never been aggressive or territorial about them and for that reason I let her do as she wants about them.

I don't know if giving your bird a box with enough of the bottom removed so that it is not dark inside of it would help. My birds love to destroy boxes, but I must admit that I give Kookooloo boxes that are too small for her to try and nest in, so she just tears them up. Sometimes a box that is large enough for them to hide in with limited access, even if it is not actually dark enough will still be used for nesting which is why I use boxes that are too small for this,

To me a good quality seed mix is one that only has seeds in it, without all of the additives and soy that are put in so many of them. I also look for seed mixes that either have no sunflower seeds in it or the sunflower seeds are way down on the list of seeds in the mix because the closer to the top of the list the more of them are in it. and my birds get their seed mix every evening for dinner.

[Pajarita]

Yep, same here. In seed mixes, I look for as large a selection of different types as I can find, not too many sunflowers seeds and only the grey striped kind but I also add roasted nuts (chopped for the little ones and whole for the large species). My birds get a seed/nut mix for dinner every night. Seeds have gotten an undeserved bad reputation due to the fact that people used to feed seeds and crap (me included!) to their birds. But seeds and nuts are part of every single parrot species so, obviously, they cannot be as bad as some people make them out to be, right? Mine eat gloop and raw produce for breakfast and seed/nuts for dinner. During the breeding season, I add quinoa to the small species mix and hemp to the larger ones as well as a bit of insect protein to their gloop.

As to 'cavities'... well, I guess it depends on the species and situation whether you allow, encourage or discourage. Quakers use nests all year round so giving them a box is not something that is going to make them hormonal per se. GCCs, sun conures and cockatoos would use them, sometimes, for sleeping and/or playing but, in my personal experience, as long as you are careful of the two main triggers (light schedule and diet), they also don't become hormonal from them. Amazons and other conures would gladly chew on a box but would not go in unless they are hormonal (again, light and diet prevents this from happening). But the little ones (cockatiels, budgies, lovebirds, plets, etc) seem to be so terribly opportunistic in their breeding triggers that any little thing pushes them over the edge so I would not recommend they get them outside of breeding season.

[seagoatdeb]

My pois get one to two teaspoons of seeds a day and I usaually have at least two seed mixes that I mix together, so they get wide variety of seeds,and often mine are sprouted. i have only one source in town with quality seed mixes so for more variety, I order on line. They are also allowed a nut, or small pieces of nuts if its a big one I had to crack. The get some grains and legumes/beans, mostly sprouted but sometimes cooked and lots of veggies and fruits. I do have some organic pellets with no additives and seed balls, which I ony give a very small amount of, just to make sure they are gettting all their vitamins.

[flappybird]

Do any of you have any recommendations for a seed mix I could purchase? "Good quality, fresh seed mix" gets mentioned a lot but there are a lot of varieties out there... any names / brands would be awesome!

Thanks

[Pajarita]

I use different ABBA seed mixes which I either fix on their own or mix and 'doctor' for the different species. I get 1600C (cockatiel mix), 1600 (budgie mix), 1700 (canary mix), 1900 (finch mix) and 2400 (tree nuts). The large parrots get the cockatiel food mixed with the nuts which I roast in the oven but the little ones (GCC, PFC, lovies) get cockatiel/budgie for breeding and plain budgie for winter. The finches and the canaries get their own and the cardinals and the quails get the budgie mix for the winter and the same one with freeze-dried mealworms and extra hemp (which the parrots also get during breeding season but less often) during the breeding season through molt.