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Gluten Free Household

Talk about bird illnesses and other bird health related issues. Seeds, pellets, fruits, vegetables and more. Discuss what to feed your birds and in what quantity. Share your recipe ideas.

Gluten Free Household

Postby skyesmom » Thu Apr 18, 2019 10:19 am

We have a new 4 week old Indian Ringneck. This is our first bird. I have been reading The Healthy Bird Cookbook.

The first recipes are all bread recipes.

We are a gluten free house though, due to allergies and I am wondering if I can substitute gluten free flour for whole wheat flour or are those types of flours harmful to birds. We use a lot of almond flour, coconut flour, rice flour, tapioca starch and potato starch. We also sometimes use a premixed gluten free flour blend.

(I also got a package of Bird Bread from our new avian vet yesterday.)
skyesmom
Parakeet
 
Gender: This parrot forum member is female
Posts: 2
Number of Birds Owned: 1
Types of Birds Owned: Indian Ringneck
Flight: No

Re: Gluten Free Household

Postby Pajarita » Thu Apr 18, 2019 10:31 am

Well, I wouldn't use the starches but the almond, rice, etc flours are OK. But the bird you have is way too young to eat any prepared food, it still needs to be handfed four times a day, at the very least, and you will have to do this for a couple of weeks, then reduce to three, then reduce to two, etc. so I hope there is somebody home 24/7 because, otherwise, the bird needs to be fostered out to somebody who can do the handfeedings. I don't know who sold you such a young baby but, whoever it was, it was NOT a bird lover or a good breeder, that's for sure! Also, you will need to provide soft food for it (two kinds served fresh and warm twice a day until the bird is 6 months old - then it goes down to just breakfast for the rest of the bird's life). These birds cannot be free-fed pellets or seeds, they are fruit eaters so protein food is a small measured amount (one tablespoon for dinner) and it needs to be the lowest (finch or budgie seed mix). Pellets are too dry for a bird that was created to eat 90-95% moisture (pellets have 10%) and too high in protein. Seeds are not that dry but they are also high in protein so you need to feed the lowest protein mix and in a very small amount. Mine eat gloop (they LOVE it!) for breakfast accompanied by raw produce (they are not much on veggies but they do eat the ones in the gloop) and get a heaping tablespoon of finch seed mix for dinner.
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: Gluten Free Household

Postby skyesmom » Thu Apr 18, 2019 11:46 am

S/He is still being fed baby food four times a day, around 10ml per feeding. The vet (who thinks he is male due to his behavior, also which is the same thing the breeder said) sent me home with Bird Bread yesterday and instructions on feeding... She wants him off of the baby food as soon as we can convince him of that. He is not using his beak for eating yet. He will kind of peck at food and put his tongue on it but doesn't pick it up or swallow it. She wants him on bread and mash (hence the Bird Bread she sent home with me) now to try to entice him to figure out how to eat.

I was looking at the recipes more as future reference though and wondering if I need to get him some type of flour that we do not eat. I thought the flour we use might be okay but was unsure about the starches.

Thank you for your response!! :D
skyesmom
Parakeet
 
Gender: This parrot forum member is female
Posts: 2
Number of Birds Owned: 1
Types of Birds Owned: Indian Ringneck
Flight: No

Re: Gluten Free Household

Postby Pajarita » Sat Apr 20, 2019 9:19 am

PLEASE do your own research on the species. Do not follow your avian vet's (or anybody else's) advice . I really do not know why avian vets give advice on diet, nutrition or behavior because these are subjects they do not study (I have three Avian Medicine and one Avian Surgery text books and the nutrition chapter is two pages long -too many species, too many different dietary ecologies so it's so generic as to be useless- and there is no chapter on behavior) so, unless the vet is an individual who has owned multiple parrots for a number of years and has done research on the species he keeps on its own time (doubtful but possible), he has no more knowledge or expertise than anybody else out there.

If you do research on IRNs you will find out that babies don't even fledge until they are almost two months old and normally stay with their parents until they are about one year old. This doesn't mean that you will have to hand-feed for an entire year but it does mean that, if one follows the rule of thumb, you will have to hand-feed for 5 months or so. See, the thing with hand-feeding is that although a baby bird will look as big as an adult in a few months, they are still emotionally dependent and that translates into hand-feeding because, to a baby bird, the ultimate proof of love from its parents is the fact that they feed them. Parent birds don't kiss or cuddle with their babies, they give them warmth, company and food -which means security and no stress for the baby- for as long as the baby asks for it so, in my personal opinion, if the baby asks for it, give it to him.

You need to be VERY careful when hand-feeding and weaning because doing it wrong means a messed up bird forever. We have studies that say that babies that went hungry (force weaning = hungry baby) will develop eating disorders - and that babies that suffer stress (not getting the 'love' of getting fed causes a feeling of insecurity = stress) remain high-strung for the rest of their lives. A bird that is never satisfied with food will scream incessantly and a high-strung bird is a bird that does not adjust to new anything and that startles easily. Taking into consideration that IRNs are aviary birds and when kept alone are always stressed out, I would be super extra careful. The sad truth is that ALL the undesirable behaviors in parrots (screaming, biting, plucking, etc) are always caused by improper husbandry. And that the current hand-feeding and weaning guidelines are actually harmful to both the birds and their humans. Personally, I follow Nature and if Nature determined in millions of years of evolution that a baby bird needs to be fed whenever and as often as he begs for it for him to grow up well-adjusted, I'll do just that.
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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