Feeding Natural Parrot Diet Enzymes Parrots cant produce.

[Wolf]

Excuse my ignorance for showing through and shining so brightly but is seems to me that while we do need to be more aware of what we are feeding our birds and ourselves that in many respects it is a matter of making sure that we avoid the poisons that are used on our foods and then perhaps avoiding the ones that are to high in everything else. When I examine what we are saying it comes out something like this protein is bad, fat is bad carbohydrates are bad and fiber is bad. That does not leave much other than dirt and water that they can eat and we have to be careful about them as well. It seems to me that it is turning out to be that just as in humans that it is a matter of all things in moderation as there are bad things in everything that we eat, but we still need to eat. It seems to me that one type of food being fed along with another type of food can reduce the effects of the bad things in both of them as well as providing an enhanced nutrition in other things such as tow incomplete proteins providing different incomplete proteins that combine to provide a complete protein. Or the fiber in this food binding bad cholesterol to it and flushing it out of their system.

Perhaps while we are trying to eliminate all of the bad thing we need to focus on what foods to combine to reduce the effects of the bad things while providing better nutrition. Our bodies and probably the birds body as well is designed to deal with many of these issues during the processes of digestion and in many cases actually needs to do this to some degree in order for it to work properly. Like the immune system can be weakened by too much stress or through not being used and can be helped to remain strong by allowing it to do its thing.

I know that I am not putting this scientifically, but most of our members are not scientists and what I am saying is still supported by science even if I don't speak it that way.

[Pajarita]

You have me confused, are you talking about humans here? Where does it say parrots have mucus they need to clear out? They dont eat milk products, or other mucus forming foods.
The main point was that humans need a fairly high cellulose diet but parrots need a low one because parrots dont have Ceca. Parrots natural diets are low in cellulose..

No, I am talking about parrots. It was your source that said that cellulose strips the mucus of the digestive tract and that's why it's not good for them. I quote:
" For birds that do not have a cecum, and because birds do not produce cellulase to break down cellulose, this tough indigestible fiber only acts as a laxative stripping the delicate mucus lining from the digestive tract, as well as nutrients as the cellulose passes through."

And parrots natural diets are not low in cellulose. It's not as high as it would be for a ruminant, of course, but cellulose is found in every single plant material: fruit, grains, leaves, buds, flowers, etc and that's what parrots eat in the wild so it couldn't possibly be low cellulose.

Of course parrots in the wild will eat whatever they can find, and life in the wild can be hard in years that food is scarce. I have seen native birds eat white bread crumbs fed to them by people at Beacon Hill Park in Victoria for years, and the birds will even get agressive to get that white bread, but it is not good for any of those birds to have a diet high in bread crumbs, but they still eat them and look healthy, and all birds are like that they will eat things bad for them, and wont show sypmptoms untill they are very ill.

With a parrots native diet, they have been eating the same things for thousands of years. Any who ate wrong food would not reproduce as much as they would die younger, so after thousands of years the parrots left are the ones that are teaching their young to eat good foods. You will not see much changes with the addition of human crops to areas, because not enough time had gone by to see long term results. Also, in times of famine for parrots, humans could irrigate their crops giving parrots something to eat, so they would be temporarily more healthy since they might have been starving, but that doesnt tell you the long term affects either, becasue it would skew results of long term health. In areas that crops are heavily sprayed with round up, or other posions, the affect of the poisons would not be good in the long run. Wheat especially is sprayed with round up just before harvest as it increases yield by killing all the insects who eat the grain. So unless you can find organic ancient wheat, it is the worst for us and for parrots too, because it has been bred to have a lot more gluten, which is hard for any animal to digest, and it has a lot of poison in it.

Yes, of course that chemicals are bad for them but we are not talking about that, we are talking about whether cellulose should be low for parrots or not because the food highest in cellulose is also the good, healthy stuff (like sweet potatoes, carrots, pumpkin, broccoli, etc.) and, unless there is incontrovertible proof of what this lady is saying (which I cannot find anywhere no matter how hard I search for it), I would not even contemplate reducing my birds intake on them.

[seagoatdeb]

Most plants are moderate in cellulose, it is only the cruciferous ones that are high, and none of them are natural in their wild diet. i am using the high cellulose plants less and increasing the lower cellulose ones.

Wolf you make a good point about combining, but we really cant be sure about combining for parrots thats the problem there. When i am eating out, i will drink a cup of coffee, for the simple reason that caffeine will bind to some of the allergens that might be in my food and make it safer for me to eat out at places that arent my normal spots, in case they have potatoe starch in something. i have learned a lot about food combining for humans, as i have studied it a lot. Parrots are much harder since there is so little info to study. I do think moderation is important and that is why i am limiting high cellulose, so from now on only one high cellulose item a day. They still get a wide variety of healthy things so its all good.

[Pajarita]

Well, going by your posts, you were feeding them a lot of kale which I don't do because of the sorbitol and iron. My birds do get broccoli in their gloop as well as a tiny bit of blue curly kale, and they do get raw broccoli as the green of the day about once a week or every ten days (depends on the price) but I don't feed cruciferous often at all (hardly ever during the warm weather months) because of their high oxalate content.

[seagoatdeb]

Well, going by your posts, you were feeding them a lot of kale which I don't do because of the sorbitol and iron. My birds do get broccoli in their gloop as well as a tiny bit of blue curly kale, and they do get raw broccoli as the green of the day about once a week or every ten days (depends on the price) but I don't feed cruciferous often at all (hardly ever during the warm weather months) because of their high oxalate content.

Nope i dont feed them a lot of any green leaves, I only gave them kale when there was jucy new growth, so on average, they only had kale a couple times a week or once a week and they got a whole leaf they could hold and chew on and only ate a little as greens are not there favorite, they mostly play with it ripping it to shreds. I have always been sparing of greens and rotate because of the tendency of toxins to be concentrated in the leaves of plants. I rotate my own greens a lot too for my own diet. My parrots will eat lots of cauliflower and broccoli though, they like them, so I am just cutting back and adding in more other veggies and fruits. I also rotate there nuts and I constantly vary the seed mixes they get.

[Pajarita]

Yes, variety is the key to a good diet.