Question about sunflower seeds/diet/molting

[Cielo]

Hi, I am new to the forums but have been lurking here for about 7 months. My Green Cheek Conure, Picasso, was given to me and I believe he is around 13 years old. I have been around him on a daily basis the last 2 1/2 years so we are not strangers though he has only officially mine since christmas. He was given to me because we bonded quite quickly and I fell in love with him.

Picasso has been on an all seed diet his entire life. For months I attempted to put him on Roudybush and he went on a hunger strike. As an alternative I tried zupreem (the ones that look like little fruity pebbles) and he took to those immediately. During the time he started on Zupreem, he started molting.

Which leads to my first question. Is there a certain time in a conures life when they go through an extremely difficult molt? I have been with him over 2 1/2 years and this has been the longest most difficult one ever. As of today, He has been molting for 10 weeks if not even longer. Does this extreme molt correlate to a particular age or period it would help me to better figure out his age or could it be an health/diet issue?

At the beginning of the molt was when I had just switched him to Zupreem and he became extremely itchy. I thought it was because of Zupreem and tried Pretty Bird and Lafaeber. He will eat Lafaeber if it is mixed with the Zupreem but will not touch Pretty Bird. His itchy had gone away somewhat but was still bad. At this point, his feathers had faded quite a lot and were no longer shiny. He had lost a lot of feathers but again was molting so I wasn't concerned about the loss of feathers. He is normally very bright and shiny so this concerned me and I decided to add seeds back into his diet.

Instead of adding dried seeds, I decided to go with sprouted seeds. I bought from the health food store: adzuki, barley, raw sunflower seeds, green lentils, mung, radish cherry, popcorn, and quinos. I mixed them all together and have had no issue with getting them to sprout. However, he only wants the sunflower seeds! I have heard so many people say to never feed sunflower. So my second question is to ask if sprouted sunflower are different than dried sunflower seed? Can I feed these to him and not feel guilty?

Since he has been eating sprouts and Lafaeber, his color is back to normal and he seems to be less itchy. He is still molting! Just to make a note, he eats fresh fruit daily. Two different fruits in the morning, two different fruits at night. The only veggie he will touch is cooked cabbage. He will not eat any dried nuts or dried fruit.

As far as behavior, he hasn't changed at all. Picasso is loving, cuddly, and goes to bed at 8pm promptly. He doesn't fly even though his wings aren't clipped. After the molt is over, I am going to make some training perches to get him to fly (hopefully). He will go to anyone except kids and is very quiet. He sits in the shower and gets a steam bath daily but takes a regular bath at least twice a week.

Sorry this is so long. I am concerned because of the extremely long molt combined with the change in diet. I am looking for nput if this is normal or from the change in his diet. I am open to any ideas or things I can change to make his life better and longer.

[cml]

Leroy has been molting for 12 weeks now, and he just turned one. It started with the small feathers on his body, stopped for a week or so and then slowly continued with his wing feathers. Now he's molting his rear feathers, and I hope that's the end of it . It's been great to see him regain his flight feathers though, as they were damaged before the molt (not clipped). He hasn't been itchy from what I can tell, we shower him twice a week, maybe that has helped!

[laducockatiel]

Normally they molt for about 10 weeks, but how long they molt for always changes a bit.

Sunflower seeds aren't that bad for parrots, you just shouldn't feed them regularly because of the high fat content in them, but I am sure sprouted sunflower seeds would be better.

Try different veggies with him though, because they need the nutrients from the veggies. Some of my cockatiels favourites are corn, broccoli, Brussels sprouts, carrots etc. You can even try frozen veggies. Fruit is good for your bird, but it contains a small amount of sugar, so you should give more veggies than fruit.

I hope this helps!

Regards,
Laducockatiel

[marie83]

I'm no nutritionalist but sprouted seeds are way more healthy than dry seeds, as you know sprouting is the beginning of a growth process so the nutients in the seed change to increase levels of certain vitamins and protein to allow that growth to take place. All well and good and definitely feed a good sprout mix to your conure as it has so much health benefits and is full of essential amino acids but it in no way makes for a complete diet, even with the fruit added in.

The odd dry sunflower won't harm your bird at all but it is considered junk food. When sunflower seed is sprouted the seed becomes alot more healthy, you can feed more sprouted sunflower than you can dry, which is a good thing but if that is the only thing or makes up a large percent of the overall diet, this makes it a bad thing. It would be like us living on a few foods for the rest of our lives.

I tend to feed sprouts a couple of times a week, increasing it to every other day when they moult. I don't know if that is right or wrong, I'm certainly not going to tell you to do the same but my vet thinks my birds diet is good.

As for all the fruit, well it is good but full of sugar, berries tend to have more health benefits than things like apple and banana, plus they are lower in sugar than other fruits. It would benefit to try to get your conure to swap a couple of those portions for veg, he might not touch them for a while, you may need to present it in different ways. Try cutting it big, cutting it small, cooking it, offering it raw, hanging it from a bird kebab stick so it looks like a toy, eating it in front of him and mashing it up. Reduce his main diet for a couple of days so he is hungrier than usual, increase his ration again if he loses too much weight, then try again.

Don't give up though and keep offering, my 'tiel will touch nothing but seed and pellet but even after 5 years I'm still offering it to her.

As for his base diet, you could try the roudybush again but this time follow a pellet conversion plan such as
http://www.northernparrots.com/successf ... et-blog43/
This is the one I used but certainly not the only one available. Don't feel you have to follow it by the book, it suggests using mash for instance but Harlie will not touch anything wet. I still managed to change her onto pellets.

As for the extended moult I don't really know. Ollie my green cheek has been moulting for ages too, I'm starting to get a bit concerned over it now. I may make a separate post about it.

[Cielo]

I wasn't expecting replies so quickly! We live in Florida so his fruit diet is based mostly on what is in season but most fruits including berries are readily available year round. This week, his fruits are blackberries, cherries, blueberries, fresh pineapple, banana, and black grapes. He gets about a nickel size of two fruits, so like 1 cut up small grape, 1/2 of a cut up cherry. Of course I eat the rest of the fruit =) I will certainly try to cut back on how much fruit I give him but he loves the variety.

As far as veggies, last night I gave him brussel sprouts but he acted terrified and literally ran away. I have tried to trick him in every way. Cooking veggies such as carrots in with his cabbage. I also grow four different types of peppers but have no success. He will "taste" jar baby food veggies, maybe its the color or something but not really sure how nutritious those are. I have not tried the kabob! I will give that a try this week for sure and hope that might work. It is easy to give up and there are weeks that I don't bother to try so I appreciate the encouragement to keep at it.

Among other things in his diet is yogurt. While some birds are lactose intolerant, i dont think he is. I also try to mix veggies in the yogurt since he likes yogurt even better than sunflower seeds. He gets boiled egg once a week but often will only take a bite or two. I don't eat a lot of pasta/bread so he doesn't get that much but he does get rice on a regular basis.

What do you all think about plain Silk? I always use it in my cereal and he goes crazy trying to get to me! I just wasn't sure about soybean.

Also I give him the sprouts daily, should i cut back? Is it possible that too many sprouts are bad?

I have been mixing the Lafaeber with the roudybush as they look identical! Now it seems he doesnt want to eat either one.

Thanks for the info on molting. Maybe it was his old molts that were not normal? They usually only lasted a few weeks. I will certainly pay more attention to the next molt and compare it to this one. Sorry to rattle on and I really appreciate your help.