I recently adopted an unfledged Scarlet Macaw with severe metabolic bone disease. Very sweet bird (inspite of being a Scarlet ) which is surprising as he had multiple old fractures and a very stunted body and would have been in a lot of pain as he was growing up.
I was feeding him up on some good nutrition (Kaytee macaw) for about two weeks prior to performing surgery. This is because his bones were still soft so I wanted to get some calcium into him, and, nutritional secondary hypoparathyroidism (the fancy name for metabolic bone disease) results in clotting deficiences so I didn't want him bleeding to death on the table during surgery. The surgical procedure involved re-breaking his legs to restraighten them (placing external fixators on them) so he could stand as well as re-breaking his jaw to restraighten his beak so it doesn't overgrow. Sadly, Gavin (as I'd called him) never woke up from the anaesthetic after the surgery was finished. We suspect there was another metabolic problem which may have caused brain damaged and possibly caused him to slip in to a coma. Very sad day for me .
However, I thought it was a good opportunity to applaud all of you out there that feed your parrots good, balanced diets. Gavin was preferentially fed corn by his parents. The calcium phosphorus ratio of corn is ridiculously out of whack. Ideal Ca:P is 2:1 whereas corn is about 1:30...The overall diet of the parents is fine, if it is ALL consumed. They are offered fresh fruit and veg with soaked seeds etc etc. No pellets (I've been trying to convince Owner to convert to pellets...still trying ). However, birds are like kids and will pick out the yummy corn preferentially which is where the problem then arises.
Anywho, just thought I'd share the sad news as well as enlighten anyone out there who may not be aware of the dangers of offering parrots a smorgasboard of food where they get to choose.