by Pajarita » Wed May 17, 2017 10:58 am
Because pellets are too dry. Parrots natural diet is always fresh plant material -some eat more fruits than others, some eat more bugs than others and some don't eat any bugs, etc. but, with the exception of a couple of species, they are all classified as herbivores and fresh plant material (fruits, buds, blossoms, leaves, etc) has a water content (moisture) of 85 to 95% (meaning that what nature evolved them to eat is practically all water!). People talk about parrots eating nuts and seeds in the wild as examples of their eating dry stuff but what they don't take into consideration is that the seeds and nuts they eat are what we call 'green' (meaning, they are taken off the plant and haven't been dried and stored) and that means a higher water content than the seeds, grains or nuts one can give them. I'll give you an example: when wheat is on the plant, the kernels have a water content of up to 46% BUT by the time you buy the wheat kernels, say, in the supermarket, the water content is only 13.5%- big difference, isn't it?
Pellets need to remain 'fresh' (meaning not rotting or developing mold that could harm the bird) for long periods of time because from the time they are put together and bagged to the time when you feed the last pellet from the bag you bought at the petstore, months go by. If the pellets had a high moisture content, they would rot in a matter of days so they make them dry (a max of 10%, usually).
Now, one can say: "Well, all they have to do is drink more water and problem solved!" But, unfortunately, it's not as simple as that and I'll tell you why. Parrots are prey animals and, like the greatest majority of them, they are what's called 'crepuscular feeders' (this means that they eat when the sun is beginning to rise and when it's beginning to set). This is a survival of the species mechanism that nature gave them so more of them don't get caught and eaten because predators lose, at least, 10% of their sight during twilight (sunrise -aka dawn- and sunset -aka dusk- are both 'twilight') so it's safer for the birds to come down to ground to eat and drink then. This I something that is 'programmed' into their brains to the point that even birds that are born in captivity and have never even seen a predator would still eat and drink at those times. Then you have another important evolutionary problem: because nature evolved them to eat VERY wet food all the time, their digestive system is meant to get most of the water it needs to keep the body healthy from the food and not so much from actual drinking so the action of drinking a lot and often is something that it's not 'programmed' into them (if you observe your birds closely and often and keep them at a solar schedule with exposure to dawn and dusk, you will see that they mostly drink only in the morning and a little bit more at night but almost never during the day). Their drinking is so 'set' by nature that I have come to realize that different species have their own number of gulps they all drink (for example, cockatoos take 6 to 8 sips very early in the morning and not a single more during the day but senegals take only 4 or 5). We have also learned from other species that when you feed a dry food to an animal that evolved to drink little because all its food is supposed to be wet, a large number of them will develop kidney problems. This is something we have learned from cats. Cats are what it's called an 'obligate' carnivore (it means that they are supposed to eat meat and nothing else) and, as their ancestor was a wild cat from the desert where there is very little to no water, nature made it so their eating meat (which it's 85% water) is enough for them to get sufficient hydration. But we were feeding them dry kibble all the time and a large number of them was still not drinking enough water (even though they have been domesticated for thousands and thousands of years) so they would get kidney disease as they got older (feeding them canned food takes care of that problem). I had an avian vet that said that most pet parrots that are fed pellets live in a state of semi-dehydrations their entire lives.
I try my very best to give my parrots what nature evolved them to need. I can't give them freedom, allow them to breed, live in a large flock or the foods they would eat if they were in their natural habitat but I give them as many hours of out-of-cage time as I can, I allow them to nest and lay eggs, I try to provide a mate or a companion and other birds to share their life with and I give them fresh food that, even though it's not the same things they would eat in the wild, at least they are within the same nutritional parameters as their wild diet so the protein, fat, moisture, fiber levels are pretty close to what they should be.