by Pajarita » Mon Jan 02, 2017 1:29 pm
Well, humans take glipizide once or twice a day (when the dosage is high) so I doubt it needs to be done throughout the day. The norm is once a day, 30 minutes before breakfast - I tried doing some research to see if it's any different with birds but there aren't any real indications anywhere (diabetes in birds is still uncommon although I have heard of more cases lately), only that vets recommend the owner puts it in the water -same as glyburide, a similar oral med for type 2 diabetes and also used for birds- but no explanation on whether this is actually necessary or just to make things easier on both the bird and the owner.
A transition in diet is never done cold turkey, it's always done at the bird's pace, slowly and gradually. The bird is never supposed to actually go hungry although, for a diabetic bird that is taking medicine that lowers blood sugar, I would make it even slower so as not to cause a dip in it that would cause the bird discomfort. I hope that when you say Kaytee's pellets, you are not talking about the fruity ones which actually have white sugar added to them and which is, precisely, what parrots should never, ever get, sick or healthy.
Avian vets don't study parrot nutrition or behavior. I have a few avian medicine and surgery text books (the same ones they use to pass the exam to become board certified -there is no graduate school on avian medicine, just a test) and the chapter on avian (not parrot) nutrition is actually very short because if it was going to cover all the different species, one would need the Library of Congress just for it (think of all the hundreds of different species of birds with completely different diets there are - you have carnivores, omnivores, herbivores, fructivores, insectivores, etc all the way to nectarivores!). Avian vets study avian anatomy, physiology, pathogens, etc so they can treat disease, disorder or injury but not natural diets. They are used to dealing with animals that have been domesticated for thousands of years (like dogs, cats, cows, sheep, etc.) and for which we are still making mistakes even after thousands of years of accumulated knowledge (think about it, it's only very recently that we stopped recommending feeding carnivores food made out of corn and soy - most people still feed Dog Chow and Cat Chow even though everybody should know better by now) Of course, the anatomy and physiology of each species is directly related to the diet nature evolved them to have but, in general and although very few of them will admit to it, avian vets don't really know that much about parrot nutrition and what each species nutritional parameters are. The greatest majority of them will recommend pellets for them, but that's because the only real info they get about this subject is from the pellets representatives who, of course, repeat the same mantra: 100% nutritionally complete diet! As if you could feed the same thing to a macaw, a cockatoo, an amazon, etc and as if a processed, low quality ground up grain and seeds mixed with man-made vitamins was anywhere near what nature intended for them to eat! And because the ones that actually do know more about parrot nutrition (because they have had parrots of their own and learned about it) don't trust people to feed them right (and this was admitted to me by more than one avian vet, mind you!). They look at pellets as the lesser evil... but I believe that, eventually, they will begin to realize that most of the unheard of in the wild conditions captive birds develop are, in fact, caused by an inadequate long term diet, lack of exercise, etc.
Personally, if you are feeding her the fruity Kaytee, I would stop immediately (or as soon as possible) and would start her on organic gloop with raw produce (with emphasis on high moisture, low glycemic index items) and some nuts for dinner (all nuts are low GI). I developed gloop 20 years ago after getting my first rescue diagnosed with high uric acid and finding out that the medicine the avian vet was prescribing for her was no good for the long term as well as the fact that she had gotten sick from the diet she had been eating all her life and which I had continued in my ignorance. I feed gloop to all my parrots and found it to be a wonderful food for them (it's easy, it's organic, it's nutritious and they ALL love it!) as well as a very convenient medium to add supplements. I have treated birds with liver damage, kidney deficiency, neurological problems, pluckers, self-mutilators, etc and it has worked out for every single one of them because it's closer to what nature meant for them to eat and you don't need to measure it so they can eat as much as they want without gaining weight. I have tweaked the recipe countless times because I have not stopped doing research on their natural diets and, as we learn more and more about them and about nutrition in general, I have eliminated certain ingredients (like dry corn, for example), switch others for better ones (like brown rice for black and/or red one) and added beneficial ones to it (like sweet potatoes, butternut squash and artichoke hearts) - and, most likely, it will be tweaked over and over as it is and always will be a work in progress.