Bird food measurements?

[HeatherD]

Sorry if this has been discussed before, I tried to search but didn't come up with anything.

Does anyone have any resources for the amounts of certain foods that should be fed to pet birds?

For example, the diet of an eclectus is specialized enough that you often find detailed information about quantities (i.e. 1/2 cup mash and veggies, no more than 10 pellets, etc).

However, it seems difficult to find this information for other parrots.

I'm mostly interested in:

1. How much green leafy vegetables should be consumed daily (how many days does a bunch of kale from the grocery store last for a medium or small bird?)

2. How much sprouts every morning (a tablespoon full?)

3. How many pellets? (if you don't free feed in cage, then do you use 1/4 cup? less? count them?)

Thanks for your help

 

[Rain Bow]

Hi Heather!
I don't know that there's as an exact science for rationing of food for a bird. I'll try to answer as best as I can, this will bump your post to the top of the recent posts & hopefully others can pitch in too & I'm going to tag a few peeps, they may be able to help a bit too!

So you found the food court, & your asking about sprouting. 2 very good things for you to research to give your fids the best diets.

I just wanted to say Welcome to AA!

Now when it comes to portions I think that it depends on your fids type & size. I looked @ your posts but it sounds like you have more than 1 bird, 1 of which sounds like it may be in the process of being weaned.

I have an Amazon & he loves fresh, fresh sprouts, fresh fruit & lotsa fresh veggies! I go thru w/ sprouts for breakfast (occassionally for dinner) & sometimes a little fruit. Today he only ate a little but the day before... I think it should'veve been a cow in the bowl.

Just like us, sometimes they're super hungry & other times ehhh! Yesterday he had a small piece of banana (A foot fulls size) between 15-20 (total) red bean & black eye'd pea sprouts w/ (oregano, I believe) & ground hemp & ground flax sprinkled on top. He ate almost all of it. My little piggy.

Today he had (Same amount of banana) & between 4-6 Big white Pumpkin seeds, about 1/2 to 1 teaspoon of Safflower & Sunflower seeds all sprouted w/ Ceylon cinnamon... ground hemp & ground flax sprinkled on top. I think he ate about 1/2 the Pumpkin seeds. Maybe there was too much cinnamon or maybe he just wasn't very hungry... Hard to say.

Vets can recommend how much to feed or not feed based on optimum weight for your parrots build & type of parrot. I can tell you that as you feed is really when you get better @ predictions to what your fid will eat portion wise. This is my opinion only.

Buddy always eats better when the whole family is together. Not sure if it's because we're usually eating take out (he gets a treat here & there, I personally don't think this is it tho) I honestly think it's because we're his flock, he likes all of us to be together & chatting. I think it's the noise, happiness & activity that most of us are attracted to when we "gather" as a family. He will eat anywhere between 4-8 pieces of steamed broccoli when we're all together. Something he eats w/ me @ dinner but usually 1-3 pieces total.

He hates most leafy greens. Tops of carrots, celery leaves, most lettuces. Loves iceburg, but due to the very low nutritional value he doesn't get it often. He actually seems to like a little purple cabbage better then a nice big piece of kale or spinach. They're (birds) are all individuals... He loves carrots & tried to bite me (he never does this) when I tried to feed him a bite of sweet potato (needless to say, I stopped for now trying to feed it) next time I think I'll try to let him steal it from me.

Buddy likes 1-2 vegetables shared between us for dinner. I might get 4-5 string beans & 6 or so snap peas & we share them. Sometimes all he wants are the peas. I eat the outside shell, he eats the peas. He might have 1 1" piece of bean. The next time he'll eat most of the beans & leave the peas eating maybe the insides of 1. I always put a few pieces in his cage for a 2nd forage he does right before bed. The rest I eat.

Most fids like chops. @Mockinbirdiva
@Zara , @iamwhoiam & @Mizzely make some really good ones. I think everyone sprouts or has sprouted...

Here's an article that my Zara friend posted recently that Mizzley wrote. It's very good & I thought you may enjoy it.

If you can post what types of birds you have & any info that you know, (like weaning) regarding their food habits, we may all be able to help you more, w/ just a little bit more information.

My Chop "Recipe"

& Nice to meet you!

Rain

 

[Mizzely]

The simplest answer is that most birds will eat about 15 to 20% of their weight a day in food. This amount may be less door less active birds and more for more active birds.

There is no really right answer yet about ratios. We have ideas, but a lot of it is guesswork as we learn more about parrots. Even for eclectus, I know several that eat a lot more than 10 pellets and are fine, and others that can't handle pellets at all.

Personally for most parrots I try to maintain at least half the diet as pellets. For my Quakers and Green Cheek, they ate about 2 tbsp of pellets, 2 tbsp of chop and 1/2 tsp of seed a day.

My Jardine's currently is still being converted to eating any veggies, and eats about 1/4 cup of pellets, 2 nutriberries, and most days a piece of bird bread as his diet.

Now, depending on the situation, measuring can be good. I do limit how much food I give my Jardine's in the morning to try to encourage him to eat veggies, but as he is also underweight, I am only comfortable doing that for a couple hours. The rest of the day I do not measure so he can eat as much as he can! My other birds I never limited as they were pretty good eaters.

My Chop Recipe link above is my ratios for veggies more or less. A bunch of kale usually lasts my 1 bird and 2 rats about 4 ish months because I make large batches of chop at once and freeze into small portions.

Sprouts I don't do during the summer because I'm paranoid they'll spoil, so I'm just now getting back into the swing of it here shortly. How much I give depends on the day and how much I've made. Sometimes it's just a bit on the top of the chop, other days that's the whole bowl.

 

[HeatherD]

That's really helpful, thanks so much! I was super paranoid that I wasn't feeding enough leafy greens, but I was probably just overthinking it. I've been freezing sprout batches for a week or two since I heard that's safer, but they end up kind of mushy when thawed. I might just buy some more easy sprouters and rotate them to follow that approach for daily fresh sprouts. Thanks