Topic 02 – Health & Diet

A parrots diet consists of many things that they eat. Many people think they eat only seeds and that’s not the case at all. They require a well balanced diet just like us. Don’t be shy when it comes to vegetables & fruit. If your parrot doesn’t seem to like them. Keep offering them at least a month or so. Eventually they may start munching on the veggies or fruit. Don’t let your parrot slugs or like just one or two favorite things. The more you can get them to like the better off they will be health wise.

A varied diet largely made up of life foods will give you the healthiest bird. Diet. Some nuts are more fattening to certain birds and not to others birds.

Wash fruit or veggies well and use a clean area to prepare food or veggies. If I think food items are spoiled then I don’t use them for my parrot. I would not let my bird get sick.

Vegetable: My parrots love celery. anything green leafy vegetable. I sometimes slightly boil potatoes and yam or sweet potatoes and sometimes carrots, eggs. Slightly boiled means example boiled eggs you are on high for only till it bubbles the cover and shut the stove for 15 minutes this is an excellent way to keep the nutrients.

Carrots. String beans. Com. Squash. Peas. broccoli. Cauliflower. My parrots love tomatoes. Bell pepper zucchini. Snow peas. Sunflower sprouts. Pea shoots. Sprouted seeds and beans (excellent for protein) potatoes, yam or sweet potatoes, no eggplant.

Fruits: Fruits Apples. Pears. Grapes. Berries. Melon family. Oranges, all exotic fruits mango, papaya etc, one quick note: take the seeds of Apple and Pear they are deadly for them. Most any fruit is good for them, if they like it and will eat it then they will get a wide variety. Parrots tend to have their favorite food items just like people do.

Food People Food Pasta. Quinoa, whole wheat breads, couscous, rice and beans bits of very well cooked chicken. and various other “people foods” are fine as long as they are not the majority of the diet.

Seeds: Sunflower seeds are very fattening to parrots. Give a seed mix to your parrots maybe 2-3 times a week. They seem to always prefer it over pellets and other things, they tend to pick out their favorite items in the seed mix which are sometimes not the more nutritional part in the mix. They may leave behind the better and more nutritionally part behind and you may be dumping it out. You can not make them eat what they leave behind unless that all there is and some parrots will  starve to death they will eat something that they don’t like. This can vary from bird to bird, what one bird will eat the other may not.

Pellets: There are many pellet types on the market. I personally use ZUPREEM. To name a couple of others there are Kaytee plain. Exact Rainbow pellets. Zupreem. Harrison’s brands. There are other brands on the market besides these ones that I mentioned. Birds should still have other things in their diet besides pellets. Birds that are not used to eating pellets have to be converted on to them and at first may not like them but keep on offering them as you give them less and less of whatever else you have been giving them.

Eggs are good for them excellent source of calcium, boiled or anyway you will eat with no salt of course Cuttlebone very good calcium source play a whole cuttlebone in the cage or break them in bit size I prefer grinding them and sprinkle on the fruits and vegetables

Chicken: chicken bone and red meat my parrots love them make sure they are well cooked and do not leave the food in the cage more than 1 hour.