Rio and his diet

[daniel.lloydwilliams]

hello all.

so Rio has settled and seems happy. He can now step up and is more than happy to be handled, Hates being petted or touched

but my question is now about his diet.... I spend 90% of my life on website reading what he can and cant eat but there are so many things that are never listed and he LOVES what ever I have for my tea or breakfast.
Yesterday he had my toast off (again) we keep unsalted butter/marge and I spread it VERY thin after finding out his love affire with my breakfast.
But tonight we had brown paster with mince and some diced up hotdog.
we always feed Rio tea with us and he sits next to the dinner table and we make him the same as what we are having to a limit. So he just had brown pasta.
after throwing his on the floor he landed on my head wondered down my arm on to my folk hopped on to bowl and dug in to mine
Im more than happy to let him eat mine and I know the pasta and hotdogs are cool but what about garlic?
he loves human food..... and he wants it all the time, I dont want to ban him from the dinner table and leave him with parrot food but I dont want to give him something that will make him ill

PS he is about 13 months old, at what age do they start to pick up words? i did read 12 months

[Grey_Moon]

Garlic infrequently in small small quantities can be a good immunity-booster, but is from a family that can cause anemia (like with onions) in animals if fed frequently or in large quantities.
So...personally with that warning I do not feed it, but a bite wouldn't hurt him.

Now, onto a more pressing matter---no more hotdogs! Its not exactly the best quality meat, and is full of salt and preservatives. High-quality (like bits of lean well-done meat/fish or chicken or eggs cooked without extra fat, salt or seasoning) animal protein is best served sparingly in parrots, especially when you have a species not known to consume it in the wild (I'm not sure with IRN's. but don't think so), and in teeny portions like the size of a sunflower seed or less.

The choice of whether or not to feed a pellet-based or fresh food diet is up to you and how you feel. But it does take a bit of reading and effort to offer a balanced fresh-food diet (really with any diet pellet-based or not a yearly vet exam is the only way to tell if it helps or harms).

You could chose to feed pellets more as a multivitamin (20%) or you could do away with them all together, or feed a pellet based (60% or more) diet. Be aware that a pellet-less diet takes work to formulate properly and can cost a bit upfront but over the long term is pretty cost-effective (might cost me 100 or so upfront for supplments, grain n beans and produce but it lasts me 8 months), but there are resources out there to help you learn.

Even if you choose to feed pellets as a supplement more than the main course, this also takes work in that you still need to balance everything out, ie he couldn't be eating pasta, apples and corn and be nutritionally ok.

There's a yahoo group called feedingfeathers if you want to look into it.

[spiral]

Hi greymoon i liked your diet tips

[Wayne361]

I try not to overthink it. I use a good quality pellet as a supplement (approx 20 percent) and feed fresh vegetables, grains, and smaller portion of fruits. Just mix up the varieties to ensure he is getting a balanced diet. If I want Oscar (the bird) to eat a vegetable he is not too fond of, eg carrot, broccoli, I feed this first before introducing other foods. Small portions of human food is good as long as you dont go overboard and use some common sense (not salty, spicy etc). I stay away from lettuce as it has basically zero nutritional value and find kale is a better alternative. Hope this helps.

Wayne