by Pajarita » Mon Oct 28, 2019 8:47 am
Well, I've used a lot of different avian vets and, as it is with every other profession, there are good ones and there are bad ones... And the two good ones I've had, both had multiple birds for years before they even became avian vets and, although both told people to feed their birds pellets, when I asked them why they did it, when they knew very well that pellets were not the answer, they both replied that they just thought it was the lesser evil. But, as far as I am concerned, feeding 'the lesser evil' is not the right thing to do! I want my birds to get the best possible diet because I firmly believe that it makes a HUGE difference not only in their health but also their moods.
The biggest problem is that nobody has any real information as to what are the exact nutritional values of different species of parrots (I don't know if you know this but Dr. Harrison based his original pellets -the recipe has changed since- on chicken feed). The other big problem is that ALL birds are seasonal eaters so what they eat in the spring is not the same thing they eat in the summer or the winter so, in reality, nature did not evolve them to get a perfectly balanced meal every day -which is what the manufacturers attempt to do. I've been doing research for over 25 years on their natural diets (about two hours every day except Sundays) and I can tell you that the info out there is very little. I mean, you get a list like: seeds, buds, flowers, fruits, nuts, etc but they don't tell you what kind, how much of each, for how long, etc. so one needs to put a lot of effort and work into figuring things out. But one thing is obvious: pellets are not really very good for them and I'll tell you why.
For one thing, they are WAAAAYY too dry - parrots eat a diet that is 85 to 95% moisture while pellets are only 10% and we have learned from other animals diets that when an animal evolved to derive most of their hydration needs from their food, you can't feed them a dry diet without affecting their kidneys. We know that they eat completely unprocessed food so grains that were cooked, mashed and compressed together into little pellets and dried to the point of resembling sawdust is not what nature intended for them. Plus, there is only one pellet that uses human grade products (Harrison doesn't) and which doesn't use soy (real bad for animals). We also know that lab-made vitamins (like the ones in pellets) are not utilized efficiently by the body, they need natural, food-derived vitamins. Furthermore, we are learning more and more about phytonutrients (things like flavonoids, enzymes, etc) role in health and pellets have the sum total of ZERO. And to put the icing on the cake, you never really know for certain how much protein you are feeding because they NEVER give you an exact value (it's always 'minimum' or 'not less than', etc). There is also the fact that they don't taste like anything (have you tried them? I have, it's like eating sawdust).
I feed gloop and raw produce for breakfast and nuts/seeds for dinner plus a multivitamin/mineral I add to their water 3 x a week (this is to catch whatever deficiency there might be in their diet and to provide vit D3 for calcium absorption). My gloop recipe is still (25 years and counting) a work in progress - as I do more research and learn more, I keep on tweaking it. And one thing I can tell you, I have transitioned, literally, hundreds of parrots to it and they all love it (which I count as a big plus because we all know how difficult it is to convince them to eat something healthy and new).