Thoughts on Greys & Jacko's new diet

[Grey_Moon]

I was doing a lot of thinking last night because I had lost my faith in a lot of holistic care since Jacko got sick, and at first I was sick with guilt---I had done this to her by straying from the 'right path' defined by the 'experts'---who was I to think I knew how to feed my bird?

Then I had a epiphany---and this morning I'm determined more than ever to get my girl headed back in a holistic and natural direction.

I realized that it was precisely the conditions of captivity and the recommendations of what to feed our greys that was killing them---and that I was entirely more than capable of feeding her a nutritious natural diet.

1st---her bloodwork is great. She's been eating my 'substandard' DIY natural diet now for 6 months or so. Calcium is a-ok, cholesterol is fine... and I have NOT been adding anything synthetic. Her supplements are probiotics, flax, bee pollen, spirulina, chlorella, barley/alfalfa/wheat grass, n an immune system booster. Plus all the natural supplements in the TOPS. This is in direct conflict to the 'must-eat-pellets-or-else' mantra assuming that it takes a rock scientist to feed a creature a well-rounded diet. She has a UV light and goes out in the sun often enough.

2---despite our 'expert' care greys are dying routinely of 3 things, even when their wild counterparts are doing things that given their apparent tendency to get these diseases would kill them faster. Greys in captivity are known to suffer 3 problems---atherosclerosis, low blood calcium and defiencies revolving around essential fatty acids/beta-carotene.
YET in the wild the majority of their diet is composed of the palm oil fruit---which is very high in saturated fat---as well as beta-carotene and essential fatty acids. Not only that, but greys are thought to metabolize calcium/vit D differently than other parrots---vitamin D being critical to calcium absorption. So one could theorize that given their natural habitat they spend a LOT of time sunbathing because thats the way they ensure proper absorption of calcium. They're a sensitive species (prone to stress) stress=cortisol=inflammation in the body=arterial damage. Still with me?

3. Mother nature doesn't design creatures that kill themselves. What I mean is---they would not of evolved to eat said diet if it was bad for them.

This breaks down in a few ways in my mind:

1. Vitamin D, Vitamin K, Magnesium and fat are crucial in the maintenance of artery health (and ALSO WHERE CALCIUM IS PLACED!! Ie in the bones vs arteries!). If greys in captivity are being denied ways to get the ancestral levels of vitamin D and fats etc that they require as well as being pumped full of calcium supplements (by the by the cheap ones are essentially limestone--which is not very bio-available and tends to line arteries)---this will cause atherosclerosis.

2. Inflammation due to industrial grains, soy, peanuts...etc. These are not designed to be good nutrition for parrots---which causes body stress and inflammation (they also leech minerals and calcium from the body btw)---inflammation equals (as we've already said) bad stuff. Add this to other inflammatory agents like stress, lack of sleep...

3. Fat----saturated fat (and unsaturated) is nourishing to the body and skin. It is used (along with cholesterol) to repair the walls of cells in various organs and tissues. Lack of thereof---or in combination with inflammatory agents---will cause calcifications/hardening of the blood vessels/other body systems as the body tries to heal itself (that's right---plaque clogging your arteries is your body's systems of repairing you gone amuck because you're so inflamed that the arteries are so damaged the cholesterol ends up slipping into the 'cracks' and getting between the 'walls' unable to fix the crack---but the body sends more and more to that crack trying to fix you, and more slips in...and voila eventually your arteries clog). Greys evolved to eat a large amount of this.

See a picture? In my mind we're essentially killing them trying to save them.

I apologize if that doesn't make much sense, I'm not very good at explaining.

With that in mind--I'm taking a cue from Nature and trying to give her what she is meant to have.

I found ( ) a Canadian distributor of the China Prairie fresh food diet--so she'll be on 50% of that and the other 50% will be the veggie/fruit mash I'm already using. I'll be using the herbal supplements that come with it, as well as the herb salad from twin beaks aviary. I'll be keeping my flax seed and bee pollen, and will add in palm oil.
She's also getting a new UV light--if it can't give me a sunburn its not strong enough!

The awesome part? This is all *still* cheaper than feeding commercial pellets.

[marie83]

Nice work. I completely get what your saying, I do agree all the crap we feed our pets (and ourselves) isn't the best way by a long shot, although I still stand by what I've said previously about it being the best I can do for now. Anyway I'm getting off track with these comments, I wanted your, and anyone else who wishes to contribute, opinion on something.

I was reading an article about cockatiels a while ago, they were saying what they eat in the wild is good for them but because they are always on the move they can get away with eating it and it is adequate to provide for their nutritional needs because of the vast quantities they consume compared with out pet 'tiels. Basicly they were trying to put across that they were eating 3x as much food in the wild so they were getting the required nutrients but are so active they were counteracting the negative aspects of the diet. When we feed a lesser amount in captivity to take into account their more sedentary lifestyles, so they don't become fat, we are starving them of other nutrients because they aren't getting enough of certain things in their system.

The whole article made alot of sense to me on the whole but there were no suggestions on how we can find a middle ground. No matter what we do when we keep animals in captivity we are never going to be able to provide the exercise levels they get in the wild but by feeding them less we need to provide a much higher quality of food.

For the moment my middle ground (because I'm not very educated about nutrition) is about 60-70% pellets and the rest is made up from vegetables, the odd piece of fruit, sprouted seed and bean mix twice a week and a tiny amount of dry seed twice a week. I do throw the odd bit of egg, wholegrain pasta, brown toast and brown rice in though if that is what we are having but thats quite rare.

I will try to find the article again and post a link later, any thought is the meantime?

[Grey_Moon]

As much as that makes sense to me, in other ways I think its just pellet companies trying to scare us and take our money.

It goes on a couple of assumptions IMO

a) that their pellets are high quality and nutrient dense---reality being that they are nutrient-poor inflammatory industrial crops full of the cheapest to make synthetic chemical additives to give 'adequate' vitamin levels. Truth is the actual 'food' base of these foods (corn, wheat etc) are actually pretty high in starches n calories while being allergy-inducing/anti-inflammatory/anti-nutrient containing and poor in other nutrients. The way they try to compensate for this are additives that are not bio-available to the body, so maybe 50% of the vitamin additives are absorbed. You also have to figure that said additives are not necessarily good for the body or complete or packaged in ways that the body knows how to use. For example, the 'vitamin c' in our vitamin c tablets is actually just ascorbic acid---which is not technically complete vitamin c NOR the same vitamin C package one would get from eating an orange. The result is the body doesn't quite know what to do with the incomplete vitamin c and that it can be harmful as a result---missing other compounds normally included with it for it to be used properly.

b) that wild birds eat just that much more. Sully (my tiel) used to eat about 3-4 teaspoons a day and at about 3x that...a wild tiel would be out-eating my captive grey parrot. I don't know if they can physically manage that or if it'd make that much sense evolution-wise---that's an awful lot of food for such a small, high-metabolism creature.

c) that wild foods are sparse in nutrients or high-calorie. I don't know how much stock I put into the statement that wild foods are nutrient poor or high in calorie so they have to eat a ton of them but get away with it due to exercise. It is much more likely that our food grown in over-taxed, nutrient-poor fields would be nutrient-sparse. A lot of wild tiels diet if I remember correctly is sprouting grasses and seeds---these aren't very calorie-rich but are packed with protein and nutrients. They also consume berries and insects---not a lot of calories but certainly lots of protein and vitamins etc. If they consumed dry seeds they'd get calories n starches--but this would only be a portion of the diet. Being groundfeeders the seeds they'd encounter most of the time would've started to sprout.

So, realistically I'd say that our low-nutrient but relatively high-calorie diets in combination with lack of exercise are the culprits for disease more so than our bird's wild diets are the problem.

Given that if you look closer that wild bird's diets tend to be actually be calorie-poor but nutrient-rich (so they do have to eat more in order to offset their activity), I don't see how feeding our birds the same diet is a problem---because they simply need less calories. But given that the natural foods are rich in nutrients it doesn't really matter because they'll still fill their daily nutrient needs even while eating less calories. Wild birds probably fill their nutrient needs way before they fill their calorie needs for the day but eat more simply to fill the calorie needs, not because their diets are nutrient deficient. They do probably need more of some types of nutrients due to activity level, but the same is true for our less active birds.

Gods sometimes I feel like a conspiracy theorist

[marie83]

Well I don't think you sound that way at all.

All good points and very well made.

I think the study was independant from a pellets/bird food manufactuer but who knows since I can't find the thing now despite googling 100 different ways. There was definitely no mention of any type of food being ''best'' that much I can remember.

Unfortunately pet food manufactures will always exaggerate their claims to get a sale, so yea it is a big conspiracy really. It makes me sad to see all the cat and ferret foods available that don't have a lot of meat in them. They are carnivores but are living on a diet that is primarily grain, their bodies just aren't built to digest it, is it any wonder we have such poorly pets when everyone seems to be just in it for the cash

[Eurycerus]

I'm excited to hear how your new theory works out! It's like a giant science experiment. If you get her diet down you should write up a document about it and put it online for other grey owners to find.