by Pajarita » Sun Jun 16, 2019 8:43 am
My dear, thank you for the kind words but I am not a professional - not on birds, anyway. I just happened to have had birds my entire life, was born and rasised in a South American country where there are wild parrots (hand-fed my first one at ten years of age under my grandmother's supervision), have had multiple parrots since 1992 and even ran my own rescue for 6 years when I lived in Pennsylvania (so I've cared for hundreds of them from many different species). I had a parrot that was diagnosed with high uric acid back in 1994 and have doing research on their natural diets, their physiology, pathology, anatomy, etc as well as different species every day except for Sundays since then so I have accumulated a bit of knowledge (I have a very good memory and love to learn) but there are no experts on parrots - not the avian vets, not the behaviorists, not the trainers, not a single person out there has enough knowledge. Why? Because they had not been studied until very recently when the keeping a parrot as a pet fad started - and there are still not anywhere enough studies and I think there will never be because of the sheer complexity of the subject.
You are going to find a lot of incorrect information out there and most of it is even going to sound perfectly logical but that's only because we look at it from a mammal point of view (which is inevitable because we, ourselves, are mammals and have kept mammal pets for thousands and thousands of years). Birds are completely different from mammals - COMPLETELY! And each species is different from the others - which makes it even harder for us.
Now, as to a good diet for her/him: I always recommend gloop for several reasons. I actually came up with it back in 94 as a solution to the high uric acid problem in a redlored amazon but the recipe I use today hardly resembles the one I did back then (my gloop is a work in progress and always will be). Why gloop? Because you can make it as low protein or as high protein as you want it and the other parameters fall within their dietary ecology ones (moisture, fat and fiber), you can doctor it with all kinds of supplements (like milk thistle capsules for liver cleansing), it allows you to use spices that are also used as meds for them (like oregano, for example), it's easy to make (once you get the knack of it), it's super healthy for them (no matter how much they eat, they never become fat) and, best of all: they LOVE it! My IRNs were fed a terrible mix of seeds and hardly anything else. Their previous owner did love them and thought she was doing the right thing (from reading stuff on bird sites) but, unfortunately, she wasn't and poor Peaches ended up all plucked and was even self-mutilating in one small spot (where the aleles are on her left wing) and Casper was terribly high-strung. They are not yet well but they will get there. They are eating very well and their wings are getting stronger (they were not allowed to come out of their cage for years and their wing muscles were atrophied), Peaches no longer self-mutilates and is much better in her plucking (just a spot right under her 'chin') and, although Casper is still too nervous, she is no longer so highstrung that she would crash herself against the bars of the cage whenever somebody walks near (by the time she came to me, she had hurt herself by doing this so badly on the trip that her right wing was all bloody and hanging down and had to be 8 bandaged to her body) and both of them are stepping up (only when they are outside the cage and in an iffy spot). You have a very young bird so it's like a blank page. Fill it up with good and you will have a happy and healthy bird for many, many years to come.
Now, as to their diet. As I said, I always recommend gloop and it's actually very easy to make. You will have to try several times before it comes out exactly as it should be but, thanfully, parrots are very forgiving when it comes to stuff like that and will eat it anyway. Gloop is a dish made out of whole grains (I use wheat, kamut, hulled barley -not pearled, millet, red (Weehani), spelt, lentils and black (Japonica) rice. I cook the wheat, kamut, barley and spelt together (put in large pot with lots of water, bring to a rapid boil and reduce heat to keep it simmering for 30 minutes -make sure it doesn't run out of water and burns). Cook the lentils and rices together (same way you did the other grains). Cook the millet separately (because it only takes a few minutes before it bursts open and becomes mushy). Mix all the grains together and allow to cool (I make double the amount and freeze half of the grain mixture for another, future batch). Once they are cool, add frozen veggies (do NOT thaw, the veggies should remain frozen to ensure maximum nutrition). I use frozen chopped broccoli, corn, peas, carrots and butternut squash (it comes frozen in little cubes). I also add sweet potatoes in chunks (I boil, bake or nuke them with the skin n the Potato Express bag and peel/chunk once they are cool) and mote (giant white hominy corn) and flax seeds to it (right before molt starts, I also add sesame seed -good for feather production). This becomes the 'basic' recipe which can be served just as it is but which you can also doctor adding spices and other stuff. Always serve it room temperature BUT if you warm it up a bit in the microwave, they like it better because it reminds them of momma's food in their beak when they were babies (comfort). Now, where you serve it is another story. Some of my birds prefer to eat it from a bowl but some like it on a white paper plate on the bottom of their cage (partial ground foragers prefer it this way) so try it both ways. And you can also start with a very simple one that has only grains and some baby food mixed into them (like Gerber's) but this should be just a temporary thing until they start eating the real veggies. My IRNs always pick the sweet corn first -ALWAYS- so you can try starting with just that and, when you see she/he is eating it eagerly, start adding peas, wait until it eats them and then add the squash and so on and so forth.