hey michael,

[pfinarffle]

which treats do you use for kili and truman? you do so much training that i figured whatever you use must be semi-healthy-ish. our sennie is approaching the chubby side (149 grams). i'm allowing him plenty of exercise time to drop the extra grams, but he's a hopeless pistachio addict. and when he doesn't get his nuts, there's withdrawal screaming i have to endure. how much is too much in terms of *treats with training?

[Michael]

To be honest it doesn't matter too much what treats I use with Kili because she just really likes to eat. However, I normally limit her daily portions so that she always ends up hungry by training time. So she isn't over eating and I could practically feed her pellets as treats to her (and I often do). Most often I just use treats out of a classic parrot seed mix. Pretty much anything that comes in that like sunflower seeds, saflower seeds, corn, dried chili peppers, etc. Another mix I use is a dried fruit mix. Then I also use peanuts, walnuts, and almonds from time to time. When I get around to it I use fruits like apple and banana as treats. When I'm lazy I'll just reward Kili with pellets (usually a different kind than she normally gets). She'll work as hard for those as seeds. The kind of reward doesn't seem to make too much difference in her motivation and it has to do more with her hunger and overall motivation for the day.

Truman is just a baby and not used to many different foods yet so for now I'm just rewarding him with his own Pretty Bird pellets which I weened him off of and almonds.

[pfinarffle]

pellets certainly aren't bad! thing is, our sennie is older and much more set in his ways. although not nearly as spoiled as my parents' timneh grey once was (he'd never eat pellets!). i have trouble even cutting down food for the day in general, though. like i said, peewee screeches. heck, he screeches when i set foot in the kitchen! he just knows that's where the food is. ha! how long does it take kili to start getting hungry? it seems peewee stores quite a bit of food in his crop early each morning, then basically goes into a pellet coma (nap time!) late in the morning. he doen't get active again until around 5 or so in the evening. i'm sure that none of this is helped by my hectic work schedule. ideas?

[Michael]

Kili is the same way in terms of schedule but when I am doing rigorous training I feed her a predetermined amount in the morning.

[pfinarffle]

Kili is the same way in terms of schedule but when I am doing rigorous training I feed her a predetermined amount in the morning.

how'd you determine a good amount to give her during the morning? in my case, i'd have to also figure out what to do about the afternoon most days since i can be at work late (getting home ~8 pm some nights).

[Michael]

Hmm... this is very involved and a fear providing information about this because if misused it could be greatly harmful to the bird. I can try to write an article about this at some point but I don't think I can provide a simple response because it is more of a process to determine the amount rather than any prefixed measurement.

[lainmai]

What we learned in school for any animal (pretty much) is to offer what you would consider "more" food than they will eat on a daily basis, weigh the food before you serve it and again when you remove it at the end of the day/night. Keep a record for aprox 2 weeks and it should give you a guideline on how much your bird is eating. You can do this at any point of the animals lifespan (babies eat more than adults and again usually more than seniors etc).

I plan on weighing and recording everything on a daily basis for the entirety of Tobi's life so I can keep the information and see when there are fluxes to either adapt the diet as necessary or as an early indicator to illness.

[Michael]

It's not that simple. They have varying seasonal needs and it depends on their condition. Saying they need to eat X grams a day is misleading because this can change from time to time and with age. So it's much more important to keep up with the nutritional trends being followed.

[lainmai]

Well, it is a better indicator than simply guessing and is a bit better to figure out the needs of individual birds by habit etc. and not adapting to specific species 'ideals'. It is the system we used when I worked at the Zoo as well as what my vet advised me to do for our dogs, cats, horses, and my lovebird when I had him. I'm not saying that you shouldn't at any time NOT have an abundance of food for the bird to forage on either. It just helps you to figure out the intake (approximate as most birds like to toss half the food to the floor) so you can adapt the diet as needed when it is needed.