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African Grey Transfers all his food

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African Grey Transfers all his food

Postby Egirlkerry » Sat May 27, 2017 7:19 am

Okay I am new to this message board and would love some advice on my African Grey. I have had my African Grey about 18 months. He will be 12 in December. He has always been given Zupreem FruitBlend. He has recently began transferring all his pellets to his water bowl. He used to bring 3 or 4 pieces over eat them then bring a few more over eat what he wanted and the leave the rest in the food bowl. Now he brings some over eating what he wants, then he brings every piece left in the bowl over. I have started giving him less food and he started leaving 8-10 pieces in the bowl for later. But he has stopped doing that and has gone back to taking every piece over again. My biggest concern is him not getting enough food. I am disabled and I have a very bad short term memory so I am having trouble developing a new pattern for him. Before I would give all my birds fresh pellets and water in the morning. At lunchtime I check the water replace if needed, my Macaw gets fresh fruit and veggies. So I would love some advice on stopping or discouraging this transferring behavior and ideas on how to remember what I gave him and when. Also ideas of how much I should giving him at one time would great. I try giving him other food items fruits and veggies and he is pretty picky. He will eat some dried fruits and veggies but he is not really a fan of anything that is not crunchy. He usually gets one unroasted/unsalted peanut a day. (His previous Master gave him multiple a day) He gets a variety of dried fruits and veggies one at a time he likes green beans, banana chips, papaya, carrots, sweet potatoes, peas and zucchini. I was wondering about putting some of his pellets in a foraging toy any thoughts on that? His food bowl and Water Bowl are on the same side of the cage and I was thinking of moving it to the other side but I figured I would wait to get everyone's advice. Thank You for listening and I look forward to everyone's suggestions :gray:
Egirlkerry
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Gender: This parrot forum member is female
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Types of Birds Owned: African Grey, Blue and Gold Macaw, Parrolet, Crested Canary
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Re: African Grey Transfers all his food

Postby Navre » Sat May 27, 2017 11:10 am

Pellets are an unnaturally dry food, so in soaking them he is trying g to make them a better food for him. I would not move the water bowl, but put another one on the other side of the cage so he can have some unsoiled water.

Keep trying to get him to eat fresh vegetables and fruits. My grey asks for corn, broccoli, apples, and grapes by name.
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Re: African Grey Transfers all his food

Postby Pajarita » Sat May 27, 2017 1:44 pm

Hi, Egirl and welcome to the forum!

Grays are picky eaters - I agree with you on that 100%! I am always very successful in switching my new birds to a good healthy diet but grays are always the most difficult of them taking years to get to a nice range of produce (I had a gray that took five years before she tried her first blueberry even though she got them once a week all along). Navre is correct on the information he gave you. The truth is that all pellets are unnaturally and unhealthily dry for parrots. Parrots in the wild eat fresh plant material and this means a water content of about 85% consistently because even the nuts and seeds they eat are 'green' (still in the plant) which means a water content of around 50%. Your bird is trying to make this VERY dry (10% max moisture) food more palatable and healthy by soaking it in water (smart cookie you got there!) so, please, do not try to prevent him from doing this as it is to his benefit (maybe you can put two water bowls so he will always have clean water to drink).

I would also recommend you consider switching the pellets your feed because the fruit blend is, by far, the worst pellet there is out there (full of artificial colors, flavors, preservatives and, worst of all, SUGAR -a complete no-no in a parrot's diet!). I don't feed pellets at all. I've been doing research on parrots dietary ecology for over 20 years and have longa go reached the conclusion that pellets are not and never will be the best dietary option for them so I feed a fresh food diet that consists of gloop accompanied by raw produce in the morning and for all day picking and a measured portion of a seed/nut mix for dinner (the grays get mostly nuts which I roast in my oven to prevent a too high level of aflatoxin) with a multivitamin/mineral supplement added twice a week (for the vit D3 and any other lack they might have). For example, this morning, they got cinnamon flavored gloop with orange pepper, watermelon and chicory as 'side dishes' (the grays went for the watermelon, first, of course :D )

My grays are picky eaters (well, compared to the other species) but they eat all their gloop (and this has fresh corn, peas, carrots, butternut squash, sweet potatoes, broccoli, a bit of blue curly kale and some artichoke hearts) and love juicy things like grape tomatoes, pears, peaches, grapes, cantaloupe, pomegranate seeds, blueberries, blackberries, etc. I don't feed dried fruit, either, just fresh ones but I do mix some of the naturally dried without preservatives ones (like raisins, currants, figs, dates, etc) in their gloop (I reconstitute them a bit by soaking them in warm water overnight).
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Re: African Grey Transfers all his food

Postby liz » Sat May 27, 2017 2:19 pm

I have Amazons, DYH Rainbow 32 and BF Myrtle 7. Before I knew any better I gave Rainbow a cracker which she dunked. I was amazed. I did not know it was common.

The Amazons are the last ones to get fed so I give them each a pistachio nut to hold them until I get to them. I don't give chop but cut up fresh veggies and fruit that they can hold in their hands/feet.
Before bedtime they get half a cup of seed between them and an Almond in shell and a pretzel each. I don't take the fruit and veggie plate away until they are asleep. They go back to it while eating seed. I don't take the seed plate away until about 4 in the morning. Rainbow gets hungry at night.

The 11 Cockatiels are free flight in their own room so I feed them together. They get softened grain and thawed frozen veggies. (Frozen is healthier than fresh unless you just picked it from your garden.) They eat it all day and I take it away when I give them a cup of seed to share.

Thanks to Pajarita and the other members I have them on a light schedule with bird bulbs. They are all doing well.
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Re: African Grey Transfers all his food

Postby Egirlkerry » Sat May 27, 2017 2:30 pm

Sorry I was not trying to stop him from taking the food he does eat to the water bowl. I have never had a problem with that. I think it is a game for him to carry every piece I give him to the water bowl. My concern is making sure he has enough food when he does want it. He will only eat the pellets in the water immediately. He does not let them soak for more then a few seconds before he eats them. I always offer fresh foods to him everyday he just will not eat anything that doesn't crunch. He tries a bite of almost everything I give him he just will throw it to the bottom of the cage or out of the cage if he can. I have tried various types of pellets for him to try at least 15 brands he just won't eat them most he won't even take more than bite out of and will again proceed to throw them out of the cage one by one. Thanks for the advice I have received so far and I will do some research on the food types you did say you use. I am always willing to try new foods. My Macaw ate a seed only diet and I have got her to a 15% seed 40% pellet and 45% fresh foods. It took a really really long time to get that far so I am willing to put the effort in.
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Re: African Grey Transfers all his food

Postby Trick or 'Tiel » Sun May 28, 2017 7:53 am

What about dried fruit? At least it's better than nothing. I would recommend you try TOP's pellets, both my birds like them and they have no artificial colors, flavors or preservatives. They are by far the best pellet. Pajarita is correct that you should try your best to switch him off the Fruitblend because it's so sugary and full of unnecessary artificial colors, flavors, and preservatives. I always questioned them when I fed them to my birds a while ago, then I looked at the ingredients list and saw that I couldn't pronounce most of the ingredients, and stopped feeding them immediately. They didn't even like them very much anyway, they always preferred their TOP's to that sugary junk. Maybe you should also try sprouting the seeds, sprouted seeds are much more nutritious than dry seeds. And have you tried making gloop yet? It's a mixture of cooked grains, frozen and fresh veggies, and some other additional things like chia and flax seed. Most birds like it, but it's not crunchy, so I'm not sure about yours. There are a lot of hard crunchy vegetables like carrots and celery, so I'm surprised he doesn't like those. Keep trying, eat the food in front of him, then maybe he will start to try it.
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Re: African Grey Transfers all his food

Postby Pajarita » Sun May 28, 2017 11:07 am

Egirl, the key to switching a parrot to a better diet is timing, presentation and persistence.

Timing: parrots (all birds, actually) are hungriest early in the am so, if you take out the food bowl with the protein food (pellets, seeds, nuts, nutriberries, avicakes, etc) at night and feed them the healthier food early in the morning (about one hour after dawn breaks), the bird will be more willing to try something new - especially if you eat it in front of him making yummy noises and pretending you don't want to share.

Presentation: some of them are real picky about how they get their food presented or placed so try different things like cubes, batons, chunks, slices, etc as well as in different places. I will give you two examples: my CAG, Sophie, will not eat raw carrots unless I grate them on the coarser side but she will eat diced cooked ones! And, Isis, my redbelly, has only now begun to eat fruits and veggies inside her cage because, until recently, she would only eat them if she could steal them from the tray I use to bring their produce from the kitchen to the dining room where her cage is - and, before that (when she first started eating produce), only if she could steal them from the canaries cages (this process going from one step to another took almost three years). So use their natural biorhythms and feed him at dawn as well as different places and presentation and always eat breakfast with him (his breakfast, not yours).
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