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Advice for improving GCC diet?

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Advice for improving GCC diet?

Postby forestheart13 » Thu Mar 07, 2019 1:47 pm

Hello and good evening to everyone,

I really hope someone here will be able to give me some pointers and help me make sense of all the conflicting information I've been gathering for the past 3 HOURS on this beautiful monster we call the Internet...

Bit of context first: I'm the parront of an almost seven year-old little female GCC (she's been with us for close to 6 and half years now :D ) named Lily. Now this past week-end we had a health scare with her and brought her to a vet on Tuesday (sort of an avian vet, in my country they're called NAC vets, and deal with small mammals, even reptiles sometimes, as well, though the vet in question definitely had special qualifications in avian medicine) to make sure nothing was amiss (she's gotten better in the meantime). She checked her out, asked us questions about her diet, and said she was fine. No swelling on her body, her wings in perfect order, her plumage nice and colourful, etc... And indeed, Lily is back to her old self, thank the gods. :gcc:

Now, I'm always trying to improve my baby dinosaur's living conditions, and especially her diet. I asked questions about pellets to the vet, and she said pellets could be a good addition, although she also values seeds because they provide stimulation for the parrot. I made it clear I shunned peanuts and sunflower seeds (the latter of which I keep as training treats), which she approved of. I also need to give my baby more vegetables, and I've already favourited a couple of chop recipes from this forum, or another, and made a list of good, in-season candidates I need to buy.

Where I'm becoming really confused is when it comes to seeds vs. pellets... I've spent the last few hours reading articles, blog posts, and forum posts, on the topic. This forum is the only one where I've seen users advise against pellets. Other forums advise a 70-80% base diet of pellets, which sounds, quite frankly, crazy to me. I've also seen the numbers 60% grains/seeds, 40% fruit+veg mentioned a couple of times on different bird blogs. From what I know of GCC's diet in the wild, it mainly consists of buds, fruit, and wild grains, and I really don't like the idea of imposing so much artificial food on her (neither do I like it for myself, lol), especially since she's never eaten pellets before (believe it or not but you can't really find pellets easily in pet stores where I live, I'd have to order it online, which is fine).

Also keeping in mind that she's out of her cage pretty much all day, every day (well, except on Mondays when the cleaning lady comes), from around 9:30 am to 8:30 pm, she moves around A LOT. She definitely doesn't lack for exercise, which I've read does help to counteract the fats found in seeds and grains.

Based on what I've been reading so far, these are steps I'm planning to take:
1) Upping her veggie intake, and serving the raw/fresh food in the morning, leaving it until the evening. I've read that a serving of 1-2 tbsp is good...?

2) Having on hand a home-prepared seed/grain mix, from produce sourced from our local organic co-op. When I transitioned to vegetarianism, I had to read up on grains and seeds that are healthy, so I'm already familiar with a few good candidates such as chia, flax and hemp (in fact Lily likes to pick the latter two from my almost daily fruit + greek yoghurt bowl), as well as chia and millet seeds. The lists I've seen also include: buckwheat, whole wheat, barley, spelt, rye.

I'm definitely planning on trying sprouting as well, to mix it up.

Now, my questions:

a) Seed mix should be served... in the evening, then? How much? 1 tbsp? Do germinated seeds/grains count as fresh produce, served as such or, well, seeds?

b) And so, what about the pellets? Should I even bother at this point? I can probably get my hands on Harrison's mix, I've seen users on here favour TOPS, and maybe I could get that from a UK vendor (I'm from mainland Europe). If I do get pellets, how do I proportion them in relation to the veggie+fruit, and seed/grain mix? Should I serve them with the seeds, in the evening? Alternate one day seed, one day pellets? 1 tbsp? 2? (And all of this after acclimation, of course).

Additional info (for thoroughness, hehe): Lily gets half a walnut, no more, everyday, at 6 pm (she really, and I mean, really, enjoys it). Though she rarely eats all of it (they are notoriously wasteful little critters, after all). And I allow her 1-2 sips of clementine juice in the morning, from my daily glass, before I drink the rest.

She also gets little nibbles from whatever my family and I are eating throughout the day (unless it's something toxic, obviously, I'll even put her back in her cage when we're preparing avocado, just to be on the safe side). That includes whole grain bread, butter, jam, plain yoghurt, fruit of various kinds, cheese slices, veggie, egg. Although I really try my best to shoo her when it's dairy products, so consumption is kept to the appropriate minimum. She currently weighs ~72-73 g.

And that's it. I apologise in advance for the long post. I really wanted to be thorough and precise, and just want what's best for my baby, as I'm sure all the parronts here can understand! :) She's pretty healthy so far, but if she can be even healthier that would be even better!
forestheart13
Parakeet
 
Gender: This parrot forum member is female
Posts: 1
Number of Birds Owned: 1
Types of Birds Owned: Pineapple Green Cheek Conure (Female)
Flight: Yes

Re: Advice for improving GCC diet?

Postby Pajarita » Fri Mar 08, 2019 10:11 am

OUCH! on the animal protein items you are feeding her! Please discontinue immediately as these birds are mainly fruit eaters and never consume any animal protein in the wild. And no, insects are not really considered 'animal protein' (although they are animals and their flesh provides protein) because they lack the bad cholesterol and high fat content of the 'usual' animal protein. So, please, no cheese (animal protein, fat AND salt -all bad for her), no butter (OUCH!!!!!), no yogurt (she actually gets no real benefit out of it as she does not have the necessary enzymes to absorb the good things in it).

Half a walnut is a very big portion to such a little bird. Mine also loves walnuts but she gets a small quarter of one with her dinner of budgie seeds. Think of the size of her crop and how much it would need to fill it up and you will have the perfect portion for her dinner. You can feed more chop, mash or gloop because it's healthy food and it won't make her fat or sick no matter how much she eats. Same as raw produce (they eat their fruit in portions much larger than one would think it's good for such a little bird but then, they are mainly fruit eaters in the wild so it makes sense).

I do not feed chia to any of my birds (too little for their beaks and, when you wet it, it becomes a glutinous and pretty disgusting looking thing). I do feed them flax mixed in their gloop but there is very little of it compared to the other ingredients (too high in fat). As to hemp, my birds get it ONLY during breeding season and not too much of it (too high in protein and fat).

My GCC is an excellent eater, she loves her gloop and, although she doesn't go for the leafy greens, she enjoys a nice raw broccoli piece, the stalks of Swiss Chard and bok choy, the very heart of the romain lettuce and, on ocassion, a nice crips dandelion green. She loves all fruits (apples, pears, bananas, oranges, blackberries, blueberries, grapes, cantaloupe, watermelon, strawberries, etc) and some veggies (she LOVES corn on the cob but also enjoys grape tomatoes, cucumbers, sweet potato, peas, hominy and butternut squash -she gets them everyday in her gloop- spaghetti squash and calabaza, yellow or green zucchini, celery stalks and spicy hot peppers). She gets budgie seed mix for dinner with a little piece of some kind of nut, could be half an almond, a single roasted peanut, a quarter of a walnut, half a small pecan, etc.

I don't feed pellets because my research has shown me that they are not the best dietary option for them (too dry, too processed, without actual figures on protein and fat, inferior ingredients, etc.) And, yes, most sites would recommend pellets but, in my personal opinion, it's because they are easy to feed and not because the people who recommend them have actually done any in-depth research about parrots natural diets because, if they had, they would aggree that they are not the best.
Pajarita
Norwegian Blue
 
Gender: This parrot forum member is female
Posts: 18701
Location: NW Pa
Number of Birds Owned: 30
Types of Birds Owned: RoseBreasted too, CAG, DoubleYellowHead Amazon, BlueFront Amazon, YellowNape Amazon, Senegal, African Redbelly, Quaker, Sun Conure, Nanday, BlackCap Caique, WhiteBelly Caique, PeachFace lovebird, budgies,
Flight: Yes

Re: Advice for improving GCC diet?

Postby ArnoldSteven » Thu Apr 01, 2021 4:15 pm

Healthy diet is half of the way to success. I hope your kid loves broccoli and zucchini. Kidding, seeds is what they adore. My parrot likes apples though, anyone knows why? Sorry, I am not sure what is best to be done for your little bird, but I just want to say that I hope that it will get better soon. I know that attachment to our pets makes us vulnerable and their suffering is our responsibility. Try to fed it with adapted creatine and protein, maybe it will help.
Last edited by ArnoldSteven on Mon Apr 05, 2021 3:44 am, edited 4 times in total.
ArnoldSteven
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Gender: This parrot forum member is male
Posts: 1
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Flight: No

Re: Advice for improving GCC diet?

Postby donna1996 » Fri Apr 02, 2021 4:12 am

Oh poor little thing! :amazon:
donna1996
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Gender: This parrot forum member is female
Posts: 2
Number of Birds Owned: 3
Types of Birds Owned: I own 3 parrots
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Re: Advice for improving GCC diet?

Postby donna1996 » Fri Apr 02, 2021 4:13 am

ArnoldSteven wrote:Healthy diet is half of the way to success. I hope your kid loves broccoli and zucchini.

zuchinni ? to a parrot? I hope you are joking!
donna1996
Parakeet
 
Gender: This parrot forum member is female
Posts: 2
Number of Birds Owned: 3
Types of Birds Owned: I own 3 parrots
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Re: Advice for improving GCC diet?

Postby Pajarita » Fri Apr 02, 2021 10:04 am

Parrots eat zucchini. Mine eat both the green and the yellow - nothing wrong with zucchini, it belongs to the gourd family like pumpkin, calabaza, butternut/spaghetti/winter/summer/etc squash.
Pajarita
Norwegian Blue
 
Gender: This parrot forum member is female
Posts: 18701
Location: NW Pa
Number of Birds Owned: 30
Types of Birds Owned: RoseBreasted too, CAG, DoubleYellowHead Amazon, BlueFront Amazon, YellowNape Amazon, Senegal, African Redbelly, Quaker, Sun Conure, Nanday, BlackCap Caique, WhiteBelly Caique, PeachFace lovebird, budgies,
Flight: Yes


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