Help - RL Amazon's new behaviour after changing pellets

[n67]

Hi

I need help and advice about converting my RL Amazon to Harrison's Adult Lifetime Coarse pellets. He is almost 12 years old and was on a quality seed mix/fruit/veg diet until October 2011 when I converted him to Harrison's High Potency pellets. The conversion was easy and he took to it right away, preferring them moistened - about 7 pellets offered 3 times a day (so fitting the 3 tablespoons allowed). He loves them a lot, waits in anticipation for them to be served, [i.e. screams blue murder yells if they aren't dished up on time] .

However, I read about the dangers of fatty liver disease for Amazon parrots, worried about the fat content in High Potency pellets and the fact that the excess protein in the High Potency pellets also increased his breeding behaviour immensely. So after about a 7 month conversion period in May 2012 I started offering him Adult Lifetime Coarse, putting in gradually less High Potency pellets until I stopped them completely. At first he was ok with the plain Adult Lifetime pellets, for about 4 or 5 days. Then he stopped eating more than the bare minimum - 5 in the morning and 3 in the afternoon and 3 in the evening (this started about 3/4 days ago). I keep a bowl of quality seed mix in his cage just incase I'm not able to make it for his lunch but when he was on High Potency he would never touch them. Now he's started eating them again, but eating more of the dried fruit in the seed mix. He's also become fairly nippy during this time whereas he was cuddly and very active with his toys/foot toys before. He's not withdrawn by any means but there has been a change in his behaviour.

What I'd like help with/ advice about is whether I should put him back on the High Potency pellets and whether that would damage his liver long term. Alternatively, is there any way I could get him to like the Adult Lifetime pellets? He does get 3 Power Treat pellets every alternate day but I'm really worried about him not receiving all the nutrition I feel he had when he guffed the High Potency pellets.

Just in case this info helps, he is housed in a separate bedroom with a large cage as a eating/sleep cage with a shelf under it on which is a big 'toy' box. He usually spends his mornings doing flying exercises with me for a little bit and then alternately plays on his toy box, tossing out everything and then chasing it round the room, or naps on the edge of it, [guarding it with his life], or walks on foot about the flat, searching out his favourite people (me and my mum). He goes up to the cage to eat at his mealtimes and and to sleep covered at night for about 12/13 hours. I should mention that about 3 days ago we had re-arranged the room i.e beds/ desk/ shelves moved around though his cage is in the same place, wondering if that's a factor.

Would be grateful for any help at all. Thanks for reading & sorry for the length {can you tell I'm an English major >.< )

[marie83]

In all honesty I would seek the advice of an avian vet, neither of my two changed their behaviour when i swapped from high potency to lifetime. That said you have a different species so yours may need slightly different nutrition. Or yours could just be being fussy because it doesn't taste as good as the high potency (less fat in it perhaps? I cant check cuz I don't have my old bags anymore so he may be going for the higher fat seeds) Have you tried offering less seed? I'd prefer a bar of chocolate over an apple any day and most other people I know would eat food in order of preference if they didn't know better.

[Grey_Moon]

All right--- so in my mind we've got a few things going on here.

1) You moved all the stuff around---even my TAG who's a sweetheart gets defensive and aloof if we start moving stuff all over the place. This should settle down in time---its just him being wary and a little freaked out.

2) Breeding triggers--- First, he sleeps/eats/plays all in the same place. This says to him 'here is my nest!" as that is the only time a bird would do everything in one place. He needs to sleep/eat/play in all different places. Move his day cage to another room, put the sleep cage in the bedroom and feed him on a stand etc away from both. Make sure that he experiences 'flying' around to many different places. For example, he wakes up in his roost cages, flies to a stand for breakfast, then flies to his day cage to hang out and play. This has *majorly* cut down on hormonal issues with my TAG.
Second, cut out the lunchtime feeding and increase the amount of greens he is getting. A constant high-fat high-protein or starchy buffet triggers breeding behaviour.
Last, drenching baths every single day--most birds DO NOT and cannot breed during the rainy season. This also, in combined with flight and different areas to explore burns energy and turns his mind onto different things.

3) Diet---now, I know the Harrisons police force is going to hunt me down for saying this but their pellets are NOT worth the hype or the price. The high-potency is really just corn, sunflower and peanut mush with some legumes and a multivitamin powder---and a few fancy ingredients. Corn, sunflower seeds and peanuts are terrible often allergenic sources of 'nutrition' whether they're organic or not (which by the way not all the ingredients are--so the food isn't completely organic anyway). The adult lifetime is mainly corn. The high fat and high protein found in the high-potency are not even appreciated or needed by an amazon who tend to gain weight easily, and the adult lifetime is so poor its even less worth the money. My grey developed nasty nasty hormonal issues and fatty blood on the high-potency---and the adult lifetime left her beak flaky and she was always itchy and hungry. So with that in mind I'd say scrap the Harrisons completely---especially considering their outrageous 90% pellets recommendation---I mean, then 90% of your bird's diet is sunflower, peanuts and corn. I'd look into for example the rice diet by roudybush as nothing more then a vitamin supplement and then supplement the rest with whole foods. Alternatively my vet recommended the TOPS pellets and then a highly nutritious veggie mash at about 45% each with the remaining 5-10% being walnuts or bits of my food as treats.

Good luck with your amazon--they're goofy gorgeous birds