Red palm oil

[Eric&Rebecca]

They aren't hard wired but this why you feed the fresh fruits and veg as the avian nutritionist woman said. Again its an opinion as is yours. My cockatiels actually start drinking more once their on pellets automatically as well as eating fresh and juicy things which alleviates this. Also I use TOPS which have ingredients and vitamins listed in exact amounts, the avian dietician woman I spoke to said in her expert opinion TOPS are the best pellet on the market for smaller birds. I have actually checked this over and over now because I've been absolutely petrified of my birds going into some sort of kidney failure since your posts about pellets being bad for them.

In fact my smaller birds drink more with pellets automatically and I supplement this with plenty of fresh fruits and vegetables as part of a balanced diet which once converted to pellets they willingly take. Again, as she says if you feed them in moderation and not solely that's fine. My birds DO eat plenty of leafy greens and fresh fruits and if not there's plenty of other methods and foods you can feed to help this.

You are right if a smaller bird was fed just pellets all day long then yes OF COURSE that would happen but as I've said many many many times. Its about moderation and having had this qualified by an avian vet and nutritionist I feel a lot more conclusive on this. My avian vet said in 25 years he has never ever seen a cockatiel (or like parakeet) have any adverse kidney reaction to pellets on a BALANCED diet.

Again as I've stated this is just an opinion to throw into the mix from an expert and from my own personal experience. OK, I haven't raised parrots for 40 years or been an avian vet or nutritionist but I have instead consulted those people.

If you think there's a better way to do it perhaps you could upload this concern about pellets in a separate post for everyone on the forum to read so we can all hear about it. If it is the case that we're all being brain washed by avian vets and it appears avian dietician/nutritionists into giving our birds pellets then its something the whole forum should be hearing about. It's clearly an issue that needs to be raised and for one I'd like to see what opinions other people have. We'd all like to have the raw diet and this is what we strive to achieve but not everyone can do that so pellets are required, the alternative would be seeds and we ALL know the problems that causes.

The majority of people on this forum have healthy happy birds who exist on pelleted supplemented diets with seeds, fruits and veg in some percentage or another. If we're all being fed the wrong information perhaps you could impart some fo your knowledge on this matter.

[marie83]

I've always said I would like to feed my birds an all fresh, all natural diet and I really do but lets face it not a single one of us can replicate exactly what a bird would eat in the wild, in fact the vast majority of us couldn't even come close due to costs and availability.

My opinion on pellets is yes they are not natural, yes they are heavily processed, many if them with artificial vitamins etc in them because they have been destroyed in the cooking process and again nobody knows exactly what a wild bird would eat and in what quantities. A wild bird will generally eat anything available that they can survive on unless food is abundent which it isn't always.

So yes I dont think pellets are the healthiest thing for our birds but even the boffins that have done a ton of independant research and studies are only just beginning to touch on bird nutrition. That said they do know a billion times more than 99% of parrot owners and since we cannot replicate a natural diet and throwing together a mix of fresh foods and hoping for the best isn't good enough to provide a good diet. In fact unless you are an expert in what food contains what nutrients AND you know the exact amounts to feed your going to make a bigger mess of the birds nutritional intake than any pellet as your probably going to end up with an overdose of fat soluable vitamins and deficiency in other areas etc.......

For the above reasons I do think the majority of parrot owners are best of feeding a pelleted diet unless they do have the resources to put a hell of alot of time and effort into sourcing scientific studies etc, the problem with those is alot of people aren't educated to such a high level in the topic of interest and they are easily misinterpreted or they dont take into account small sample sizes etc and therefore take it as gospel. Anyhow but I only make that recommendation of a pelleted diet if fed in conjunction with fresh food, particuarly sprouted seeds as dry pellets have no natural enzymes despite the fact the vitamins can be replicated but even with this caution should be used as to what foods you feed when so not to overdose the bird on fat soluable vitamins.

[Eric&Rebecca]

Thanks Marie83, tha'ts exactly what I was trying to get at, thank you for making my point clearer

[Pajarita]

Marie is correct, nobody really knows the exact dietary needs of any psittacine species. Not avian vets (who don't even study it) and not the nutritionists. The fact is that parrot pellets were originally made based on chicken pellets which was a VERY bad idea and still they sold it as a 'complete' food. They have gotten better but even Harrison's were nothing but soy, peanuts and corn until not too long ago (they have since changed the formula). And yes, TOPs are the best of the pellets, in my personal opinion, but they are still pellets.

And it's not really THAT hard to feed them a fresh diet. Nobody can reproduce their natural diet and it doesn't only mean been able to acquire the actual plant material indigenous to their natural habitat but also because it's seasonal so they eat different things at different times of the year and we tend to feed them the same diet all year round.

And yes, some tiels will eat more veggies, fruits and leafy greens than others but they are not good eaters like a zon or a quaker would be a good eater and most people try for a couple of months and, when the bird doesn't eat it, they stop trying or just give them the couple of things they know they will eat. Some will also drink more water or even dunk the pellets in water (I have a cockatoo that wets EVERYTHING) but, again, not all of them do so a lot of them live in a mild state of dehydration which ends up damaging the kidneys in the long term. Dehydration is a problem with pet birds because it's easy to recognize in a dog or a cat but very hard with birds (they don't have gums, they don't have saliva and you can't really check the elasticity of the skin as we do with mammals) and most people don't even think of making sure their pet birds drink enough water. People even stop feeding fruits because they become concerned the poop is watery when good poop IS supposed to be watery!

Personally, I don't like to take risks when it comes to my animals so I always play it safe and no pellets is safer than pellets (especially when you have a lot of birds flying around in a room so you can't even check individual poop or portions). I feed a cooked dish of organic whole grains (oat groats, wheat -hard red winter in the warm season and soft white spring in the cold because it has less protein, barley, brown rice, kamut and a bit of toasted buckwheat) mixed with beans (lentils and mall white beans -because they have the lowest levels of Phytohaemagglutinin- during the cold weather and also garbanzos during the warm weather), and veggies (corn, peas, carrots, sweet potatoes and broccoli) to which I add veggies and/or fruits and seasonings to make a daily flavor alternating spicy with fruity. This with one fresh raw fruit, one veggie and one leafy green is breakfast (I have found that if you give them a selection, most of them end up eating the same thing over and over but if you give them just the one fruit, the one veggie and the one leafy green -different ones every day- they end up eating a larger variety). For dinner, they get a measured, small portion of a high quality, lower protein seed mix which I doctor with toasted nuts for the larger species. This allows me peace of mind on more than one level. For one thing, I control the freshness and quality because I buy the ingredients and prepare it myself, it ensures that their food has the same amount of moisture their natural diet has and I can also tailor it to specific problems and use it to medicate with herbal supplements. And, best of all, everybirdy loves it from the budgies to the macaws (even the canaries and smaller finches love it).

Most of my birds are older and came to me because of issues... some is because of aggression but with most is age, handicaps and medical conditions (most due to bad diet) so their diet has to be as good as it can be in order to keep them alive and in a reasonable good shape and, after doing a lot of research and years of trying this and the other -I've been doing this since 1992, I have decided on fresh as the best. It's not the cheapest and it's not the easiest but it is the healthiest.

[Eric&Rebecca]

I think we're just going to have to agree to disagree.

I don't personally believe that pellets are bad IF you feed them correctly and use good brands. TOPS pellets, for example have nothing artificial about them they are 100% organic. As Marie83 said raw diets can also give them nutritional deficiencies and no one really knows what they are doing for sure with that. Hell, look how much research people have done into human diets, no one can agree on that. Every person you speak to says something different about this and that one week pomegranates are badd the next week they give you cancer. Also not everyone has the sources to do it. It's the same with the millions of articles I read.

We cannot, as close as we can get, simulate effectively what they eat in the wild. For example cockatiels eat small bugs and grubs. Short of going to austrailia i'm not sure how I can replicate that bit and they also drink waters which have particular minerals in them, I can replace this with certain fresh foods but the pellets help when I can't do that everyday. Birds on raw diets end up with similar problems and deficiencies as those on pellets. So I'm thinking if I feed my bird some of all then I'm covering my bases. I've heard just as many bad things about raw diets as pelleted and seed and all the other new fangled things. I would LOVE to feed a completely balanced and raw diet but I have not taken this decision lightly. I have researched it there are hundreds of vitamins and minerals and things you'd need to balance.

Personally, I don't see a problem with the way I feed my birds because it encompasses a bit of everything. I supplement the Vitamin D lacked in the pellets by other foods. The moisture is supplemented by fresh foods and the fact the drink slightly more naturally during pellet conversion. Everything in moderation... how can that be a bad thing.

If you can do this with your birds then great and all power to you but I do the best for my birds and I don't think the way I produce their diets is taking a risk.

[Pajarita]

LOL - You don't need to do that much 'balancing', nature has already done it for you in all the different types of produce you can offer. And, yes, of course we can agree to disagree but, please, would you mind posting a link to where you read that a raw diet would bring defficiencies in parrots? Because I do research every single day and I've never found any study that said this (I don't feed an all raw diet but I am very intrigued as parrots eat raw food in the wild). My experience is completely different from yours, for one thing, I have a number of different species and, for another, I've never had a single baby tiel, all of mine (34 at one point) are and were rehomes or rescues (I don't even adopt small species) and I've seen what a bad diet can do to them. I have one that ended up blind from eggyolk strokes (and she still eats only seeds which have to be strewn on the floor in front of her so I medicate her water with supplements to keep her alive but she has been with me for four years now and still no strokes) and I have another in kidney AND liver failure that the AV told me to put down when I first got it because 'There is nothing to be done and he won't last two months' (and this one was fed pellets but in all honesty I don't know what brand) but he has been with me for, what? 8 months now? and he is actually a little bit better -not that you can reverse kidney damage, mind you, but his polyuria is better and he has gained weight to the point that he is now at a normal weight (his mandible is also split, the poor thing, so on top of all his problems, he simply couldn't eat enough).

When you have a young, healthy bird, it's easy because even when you are not feeding the best diet, the bird will look good, act normal and have blood work results within a good range for a long time but when you get the old ones with internal organ damage, the change one diet or another makes is quite drastic and, in most cases, it means their lives.

[Eric&Rebecca]

I've had older birds I don't just have young birds although that is my circumstance at the moment, I had a family cockatiel who survived to 27 years old and all other family cockatiels have survived to 20+ years (they are with other family members now or have passed previously). All died of old age and not once did they ever get sick. The only one we had die young was an adopted show cockatiel that got eggbound, the AV said there was nothing we could have done the damage was there before we rescued her, we had her just a short time. That bird was on a raw diet but I think this was coincidence more than anything and due to other areas of neglect (persistent over breeding on account of her beautiful plumage)

I don't have an article as such but I did speak directly to an avian nutritionist Dr August Abbot who said its very difficult to balance everything nutritionally and at the same time ensure you are not deficient or over compensating for certain vitamins- unless you know precisely and exactly what your bird needs by doing a blood test every month and she assured me that providing I was giving a balanced diet with the pellets its not at all an issue or a risk factor, in fact she uses TOPS for her cockatiels in moderation. I can copy this answer from my email if you want to read it, in which she addresses the issues regarding pellets and kidney disease. I actually asked this directly after you mentioned it. She answers through a forum type thing alongside an avian vet.

Also my current avian vet said a raw diet is great but again he also said its very complex to balance things correctly as each bird is different in themselves and their day to day living might require something different. The best way to combat this is by offering everything in moderation in 25% offerings. There are many vetinararian accounts online of people, often experienced people, who have had their birds get sick from inappropriate raw diets. I don't want to be the person that does it wrong when my birds have do great on the diet I have them on. Our AV had been on a conference regarding avian diets, which he also heard the same conclusions.

There ARE some BAD pellets on the market that we both definitely agree on but I think what happens is a case of a few bad apples rotting the whole cart.

What I find a bit odd to say the least that you seem to think my birds will die or get sick because I am not feeding them a raw diet like yours... in fact as I've pointed out a lot of people on this forum use pellets. I've had one bird get sick (as I've mentioned) and none of them have been deficient (i have blood tests done where appropriate). I would love to do the raw diet but I don't feel experienced enough and the whole phrase if its not broke don't fix it... I think that could apply here, I don't feel my method warrants changing. We all know seed diets are bad, I've seen those effects when i've had birds come to me and I've fixed them with the diet I use now. Those birds have gone on to live happy and healthy lives with no problems. In fact I can't remember the last time one was actually sick, I've been to the AV because i've suspected but its always turned out to be nothing. My vet said even mild dehydration is visible in the poops.

It's quite insulting that you seem to suggest I don't take care of my birds correctly and its not THAT difficult, its belittling to me and others on this forum who slave away with their parrots everyday helping them on how i've coined diet (combination diets) with pellets, seeds and fresh foods- no two peoples ratios will be the same because no two birds are the same even the same species. George is eats more natural things than Edmund, he's not as receptive but I still get most things in him so he eats at least some, he loves TOPS pellets and he does still have some seed mix. He also enjoys a soaking mix. I've had some birds who won't touch fruit (but that's cockatiels) or some that love fruits!

It might not be the only way or even the way you'd do it but it doesn't mean its wrong and perhaps you're right and I'm right its perfectly possible. Everyone has their own opinions but I don't appreciate the insinuation that I am risking my birds health because i don't do it your way. If your way works then that's great and if other people can follow it and use your knowledge that is brilliant. If my method works for their cockatiels then great.

I'm not saying your method is wrong- it isn't but its not the absolute and only way to guarantee a healthy bird. Telling people your birds only fine now because its young and your bird will get kidney disease... that's not only telling me i'm neglectful but nearly all of this forum who follow a similar diet. There are other ways that are right too. Every diet has its risks for any animal even your way. My way works for cockatiels but there are others like Marie 83 who use different diet or ratios or pellets that work well too.

When you look at bare bones of it; both our methods use balancing of different things. In fact it's not a case of disagreeing more a case of different methods which are both successful.

[Eric&Rebecca]

Here is a link that explains about the mixed diet... also about the kidney disease only being linked to cockatiels with predisposed problems due to inbreeding. TOPS and Roudybush pellets were developed on cockatiels and smaller parakeets... this explains my method of feeding- this is small parakeet and cockatiel specific

http://www.cockatielcottage.net/diet2.html I use the basic mixed diet

I've asked Eleanor if I could pass the information on in an link just to be careful and she agreed to here it is.

This is small parakeet/cockatiel specific and not for all birds.

[KimberlyAnn]

Pajarita,

I to have some concerns over the dryness of the pellets. Years ago when I lived at home and my mother had birds...it was mainly a seed diet. Pellets were not popular at all. So when I got Emmi, I was skeptical about pellets. Since I have read up on them I'm a little more convenced that they are not that bad.

HOWEVER, I am concerned about the water content! After losing my childhood cat to kidney failure,and going through the pain of giving Katie (the cat) IVs and other meds because of the failure...It's not something I wish to go through ever again! It's very true that dry food is dangerous for cats and will end their life in a horrible way.

I to have noticed that Emmi drinks a lot more when eating pellets and does dip them in water before she eats them. This is the reason we give her a bowl of water instead of a bottle and we do change her water bowl a few times a day.

I have been a "sort of" raw foodest for many years now. Not fully raw, but I know that when eating better...you don't need vitamins. In fact my doctor told me to stop taking vitamins if I was going to eat well because I could make myself sick.

I really do feel that at this point, I am not ready to give my GCC a diet without pellets. I really need to do more research so I can supplement what is in those pellets and see if Emmi will eat everything she needs to. She's still young also.

Is it just the water content of the pellets that is the issue? Could this be fixed by soaking the pellets? This is something I have done before. I soak them and grind them into a mush and cover her greens with them. When I or my husband leave for work, she's normally done and we just leave the dry pellets in for the day. (Normally she spends 4-5 hours alone as we have different work schedules) I don't think it would be safe to leave them in wet.

Anyway, if birds do have the same risks as cats for kidney failure, do you have some links I could read? After what happened to Katie, it just really concerns me.

[KimberlyAnn]

And E&R, I love that link! I wonder if it's the same for GCC?