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Curious about your birds' diets!

Comet

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My budgies are on Hagen Gourmet budgie seed (for the breeding pair) and Living World Premium budgie seed (for non-breeding birds), as well as sprouted Hagen Original budgie seed, with Higgins Sunburst leafy greens and herbs added as a daily topping. I also offer crumbled freeze dried crickets on occasion, which they seem to really enjoy, along with some fruits, veggies, and fresh herbs, whenever they are accepted. Some of my birds are pickier than others!
The button quails are on essentially the same diet as the budgies, with the addition of more crickets, and live mealworms.

What do you give your birds, and what are some of your (their!) favourite foods/products?
 

expressmailtome

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Mizzely

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Ripley is on a mostly pellet diet right now after being on seed only for 19 years before coming to live with me. I offer him chop daily even though he rarely eats it. He's currently on Zupreem fruity but I'm hoping to get him onto Hagen Tropican someday.

He also gets a mash a couple times a week with Harrison's mash or baby bird formula mixed with orange vegetable baby food, red palm oil, almond butter, some Volkman seeds, and supplements as he is still under weight and has symptoms from malnourishment.

I fill his foraging toys with in shell almonds, Nutriberries, and Caitec oven fresh bites.
 
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pawprintedheart

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My GCC's are mostly on Hagen Tropican, though the store we've been buying it from the past five years suddenly stopped carrying it, so I grabbed a bag of roudy bush to tide us over until my Amazon shipment arrives tomorrow. So they're getting a mix of Hagen and Roudybush and seem to be enjoying it. They also get offered chop regularly and are finally starting to attempt some newer veggies. Cauliflower was always a heck no from them both, but they've recently decided they're enjoying it. They get nutriberries as an occasional treat as well. And I really, really want to get back to sprouting for them on a regular basis as well.
 

AutumnRain

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I feed Emery Roudybush Maintenance Pellets (the mini size) for her breakfast. I leave any leftovers for her to eat if she's hungry throughout the day. I also give her scrambled eggs twice a week, fruit twice a week, almonds, and some kind of vegetables every morning.

At night, I add any pellets that she hasn't finished during the day to her seed mix. I just switched her over to a good quality seed mix, which is TOPS Napoleon Seed Mix. I can sprout that for her, but I haven't tried doing so yet. I would like to though. I just need to do a bit more research on the process first. She also gets a small amount of millet as treats off and on throughout the day.

Her favorite things to eat so far: seeds, organic parsley, organic kale, cauliflower, spinach (I don't give that very often since it can affect calcium absorption if given too often), scrambled eggs, and almonds. :)
 

AKahle6868

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I feed Gracie, my GCC, a mix of her old garbage all seed diet, Roudybush mini pellets, and Higgins Gold seed mix without peanuts and sunflower seeds. I will eventually mix in some Zupreem fruit pellets once she adapts to less seed in her diet overall. She also gets homemade bird bread in the morning with lots of veggies and a chopped fruit in the evening and nutriberries as treats throughout the day.
 

Erikalynnha

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My four get Harrison High Potency Fine/ Mazuri Small Bird Pellet mix at all times. They get different fresh veggies and fruit (dandelion greens, sweet peppers, carrots, broccoli, cucumbers, different berries) everyday except Thursdays. Thursdays Mayan Mash day lol. I sprout for them too but have to buy more from Sproutspeople. I also mix Herb Salad with alittle hemp seed in a bowl for them. At bed time they get alittle Red Palm Oil or Coconut Oil with a Sweet Potato Minis or Chai Kale Crisps from AO.

Uchtred, Lennerd and Papaya love carrots, sweet peppers, blueberries and pomegranate. Jellybean is picky and I'm still trying to get him to eat veggies. So far he likes red sweet peppers, blueberries and pomegranate. They all love Maya Mash and their Sweet Potato Minis/ Chia Kale Crisps and their RPO/ Coconut Oil.
 

Comet

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All sound like awesome diets! I love how many dedicated bird owners there are here. The Hagen mix for my breeding pair includes Tropican egg granules, while the Living World mix has regular Tropican granules.
I've gotten some great new treat ideas, too, thank you guys! Hopefully my birds will go for them haha
 

nightfly

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We got both our CAG (29 y/o) and WCP (27 y/o) right after they were weaned, and started them both on people food with some of that baby bird food powder goop mixed in, but they quickly adapted to just people food. Initially, they were ravenous, as growing baby birds are, and I was astounded at how much they ate. So; Hamburgers, hot dogs, chicken, PBJ sandwiches, pizza, lasagna, spaghetti, salads, apples, oranges, green grapes (for some reason, they won't eat the red or purple ones), pears, scrambled eggs (sometimes with peppers, ham, and cheese); corn, green beans, kidney beans, beets, carrots, noodles Romanoff, Stroganoff, potato soup, tomato soup, cheese soup, various noodle soups, pineapple, cake, twinkies, you name it, they get it. The only things I don't feed them are onions, avocado, and anything with theobromines in it (chocolate, coffee, etc), alcohol, or fizzy soda type stuff. Beyond that, there's always a mix of the large size Pretty bird, Kaytee, and Zupreeme fruit colored pellets in their cage bowl if they get hungry outside of meal times, and I might add a few of LaFeber's nutriberries (alternating types daily) to the mix so they don't get bored. I usually put the fruit on those hangers that pierce the chunk of fruit, but will occasionally give them canned fruit salad if I can't get fresh stuff (this has usually been during winter, when I just get lazy and don't want to leave the house in the cold, but that will change while I'm staying in Arizona).
When I was married, my wife was allergic to dust, so we always had a hepa filter running, and I've continued that practice. I have a Honeywell 64500 cylindrical hepa filter between the cages which blows down onto the floor, set onto a 24 hour timer which turns on at dawn and off at dusk (there's a radio attached too, so they always have music playing while awake). It's timing also tells the birds when it's time to go back to their cages to go to sleep. The filter keeps the dust down.
Occasionally, they will get a Reeses Pieces as a treat. I know, I know, all that sugar isn't great, but hey, they're doing well, haven't been sick, feathers are all shiny and nice, so it all seems to work. Questions?
 

Erikalynnha

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We got both our CAG (29 y/o) and WCP (27 y/o) right after they were weaned, and started them both on people food with some of that baby bird food powder goop mixed in, but they quickly adapted to just people food. Initially, they were ravenous, as growing baby birds are, and I was astounded at how much they ate. So; Hamburgers, hot dogs, chicken, PBJ sandwiches, pizza, lasagna, spaghetti, salads, apples, oranges, green grapes (for some reason, they won't eat the red or purple ones), pears, scrambled eggs (sometimes with peppers, ham, and cheese); corn, green beans, kidney beans, beets, carrots, noodles Romanoff, Stroganoff, potato soup, tomato soup, cheese soup, various noodle soups, pineapple, cake, twinkies, you name it, they get it. The only things I don't feed them are onions, avocado, and anything with theobromines in it (chocolate, coffee, etc), alcohol, or fizzy soda type stuff. Beyond that, there's always a mix of the large size Pretty bird, Kaytee, and Zupreeme fruit colored pellets in their cage bowl if they get hungry outside of meal times, and I might add a few of LaFeber's nutriberries (alternating types daily) to the mix so they don't get bored. I usually put the fruit on those hangers that pierce the chunk of fruit, but will occasionally give them canned fruit salad if I can't get fresh stuff (this has usually been during winter, when I just get lazy and don't want to leave the house in the cold, but that will change while I'm staying in Arizona).
When I was married, my wife was allergic to dust, so we always had a hepa filter running, and I've continued that practice. I have a Honeywell 64500 cylindrical hepa filter between the cages which blows down onto the floor, set onto a 24 hour timer which turns on at dawn and off at dusk (there's a radio attached too, so they always have music playing while awake). It's timing also tells the birds when it's time to go back to their cages to go to sleep. The filter keeps the dust down.
Occasionally, they will get a Reeses Pieces as a treat. I know, I know, all that sugar isn't great, but hey, they're doing well, haven't been sick, feathers are all shiny and nice, so it all seems to work. Questions?

A lot of the stuff you are feeding them can lead to high cholesterol, diabetes and obesity. When is the last time they have had full blood work/ check up at the vet. Shiny feathers is not an indication of complete health. Veggies and some fruit is much better for them then meat, pasta and junk food. Twinkies and cake or any sweets should not be on that list at all. Soups also have to much sugar/ salt for birds.
 

BirdGuy21

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To echo the previous post, no bird should be fed that type of people food. You are setting your birds up for many health problems and a ever decreasing quality of life.

All of my birds are on a base diet of Harrison's and receive a mix of Zupreem natural as a treat and to add occasional variety. They get chop nightly, which usually contains a mix of anywhere from 5-25 different veggies and a little bit of fruit. They also get sprouts several times a month, usually when a fresh batch is made every week to week and a half. As foraging treats they I use Nutriberries, slivered almonds (unshelled almonds for the big guys), and Zupreem Natural or Fruit blend.
 

nightfly

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Okay, first, neither of my birds are fat. Only me, and that's because as my knees deteriorated, I just gradually stopped getting the exercise I used to, and the weight just crept up. But the birds don't seem to snack much.

Now: The high cholesterol/lipids hypothesis (note, 'hypothesis', not THEORY, because it still hasn't been proven after over 70 years of trying) has been a panacea in humans for a long time, yet was basically disproven by the Framingham study which was completed in 1999. The American medical folks didn't get the results that they expected (that cholesterol/lipids were killers) so instead, they simply buried the results and never reported it to the general public. Then continued to do more and more studies to 'prove' that they were right all along (what's that old saying about continuing to do the same thing over and over again and expecting different outcomes? Oh yes; insanity). They also use scare tactics to prove their point: One such, was discovered with this lovely gem that showed up in one of the later lipid 'studies': 'Patients with elevated LDL levels were 30% more likely to have a heart attack'. Now let's see how they figured that out (and one of the doctors I work with pointed this out to me, and yes, he's a skeptic too). Out of the whole population of the age group they selected (age 40 to 60, I guess they wanted to ignore the rest where the results didn't favor their point of view), you had a 2.3% chance of ever having a heart attack during that time. When they put you on a statin drug (whose name will go unmentioned as I don't wish to get into legal battles), the rate lowered to about 1.5%. Now while I'll agree that's about a 30% dip, your actual chances are still only one in about 40. But they make it sound like 30% of the study was going to have a heart attack, scaring the wits out of the general public. Statins are doing something else besides lowering lipid levels, but apparently, they don't know exactly what. Not to mention, that people with very LOW LDL wind up having more deaths from those heart attacks that do happen, than those with high LDL. Then look at the charts; once over 60, you have a better chance of surviving a heart attack than if you have normal of low lipids. So they're cherry picking the items that they want to use, in order to promote their product/hypothesis, and ignoring the rest. In the end, people with high lipids are dying at about the same age as those with low. Pick your way to die. It currently appears that the single biggest predictor of lifespan, is genetics. So pick good ancestors. Ha ha. I got lucky here, with both sides of the family routinely living to their high 80's, some even to 100 (and yes, they all ate what are currently considered bad diets, too, so I'm going to eat like grandma did and make it to 89).
Then add to that, your increased likelihood of certain types of cancer and memory loss, and the end result is that taking them to lower lipids ends up being a wash as to human life longevity. Plenty of this is still going on. But basically, it continues because they haven't figured out much else to tell the public at this point, as well as being afraid to recommend anything other than the current 'experts' lipid scare because they don't want to get sued. I'm a RN, and several physicians have admitted this to me.

As far as what's healthy, other than a baby bird's bronchitis before he was even one year old, both of them have been perfectly healthy for their entire lives. I can only guess that keeping them away from other birds (avoids infectious birdy diseases), keeping their environment clean (again, decreases pathogens), and of course my 'terrible' diet, may account for this. The vet at the time recommended annual check ups. For a few hundred dollars a pop. No thank you.

While I know that you are only trying to do the best for the birds, without controlled studies, we don't exactly know what's a 'healthy' diet for them any more than we know what's a healthy diet for humans (other than, don't feed them spoiled or unwashed foods, anyway); the opinions and research keep changing all the time, and the powers that be don't tell us when their studies don't result in what they want to prove.
 

Tara81

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Hi nightfly, why not make your birdie some healthier treat alternatives, like birdy muffins and bird balls (nutriberries) ? It's fun to make and they will love it! I recently have been dehydrating vegetables and fruits and hiding them in toys and my birds go nuts :] Weiners has a lot of processed meat (hotdogs) pepperoni does also (pizza) , and a lot of fat can't be that good for them.. They get liver disease from eating too many fatty seed. I thought birds were lactose intollerant, if so that can't be comfortable.

I feed my birbs a bird muffin once every 2-3 days(treat), sprouts in the morning, millet spray during our daily training session (5-10 minutes), birdy mash in the day , if i have it on hand, chop for the third meal, in the evening I give them some seeds and sometimes a treat. I dehydrate veges and hide them in toys, I hide pellets in straws and foraging dishes. They also have a pellet dish all throughout the day and much on it occasionally. If they did eat it too much and ignore the rest I would remove it but they don't.
 

nightfly

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and a lot of fat can't be that good for them.
As above, we don't really know everything about what's good or what's bad, especially the nonsense about fat supposedly being so bad in any diet. All we know is what they were restricted to eating both in the wild and in captivity; sure, they don't eat all the things that I provide for them, compared to what they could get out in the wild; wild parrots simply don't have that opportunity. It's kind of like suggesting that people decended from Eskimos shouldn't eat any citrus fruits because their ancestors never had them for many centuries. But that, of course, people would suggest is nonsense. So why should it be any different for other species who previously didn't have certain foods available to them? After all, humans didn't eat ANY sucrose, or even wheat, until it was available in refined form, so, those might not have been okay for us to eat, right? Or how about all the things that we have to cook before eating; none of that was 'natural' for us to eat either. Yet, as far as we know, most of it is perfectly safe for us to eat, as only a very few suffer any ill effects from our diets (other than the obese and emaciated, for example).

I don't like to argue about diet, simply because at this point, it's all basically just someone's opinion, and we each have our own. I posted what I have because my birds seem fine with what I'm giving them to eat. I'm not forcing anyone else to do that. It's just to let them know, that, for example, if they run out of 'bird food', their birds can live quiet well for oh, thirty years on people food. Oh yeah, and this way I never run out of food for my birds. Could I eat nutriberries? or all the nut varieties that I give them as snacks? Or bird pellets? As a primary diet? Probably. But I'd rather eat a lot of other things. And I think my birds do, too.

Maybe this diet is actually superior to what they can get in the wild? Who knows....NOBODY does. That's just the point.
An all seed diet is bad, that we know; but the rest? There's not so much evidence yet to substantiate the claims being suggested, so in the meantime, I decided to give them, well, some of everything, and they seem to be thriving on it. I think some are reading way into my post and assuming that the get a steady diet of all of it, when in actuality, they may only get a bite of a hot dog once a month, a tiny bit of twinkie once every two months, etc..
Birdy bread? They seem to like raisin bread; and I don't have to make it myself. Same with the multigrain bread PBJ sandwich bits that they snack on when I have one. Aflatoxin? Well, it's been almost 30 years, shouldn't it have killed them by now? And me, too? After all, that internet doctor says that peanuts and peanut butter will kill you because it all has aflatoxin in it. Yet, we're all still alive.
The one exception is that they get a lot of chicken eggs, because that's what I have for breakfast every day, scrambled, omelets, etc., (yes, I've gone back to that once the cholesterol myth was disproven). They also get a piece of some type of toast and sausage or ham. Maybe a bit of V8 or orange juice too as those are my morning juices with breakfast. After all, the rest of the day all they have to drink is water with a bit of LaFeber's vitamins in it, and my drinks don't have that.

I understand people's desire to do what they believe is best for their pets. But so far, there's no evidence that what I'm doing is actually bad. If this diet was so deadly, they'd be dead by now. Instead, they're doing fine, and are probably quite happy this way, instead of being rationed to only what someone else thinks they should be restricted to eating, all because of some misplaced concept of what MIGHT be healthy, and what MIGHT not.
 
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Tara81

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But birds die from fatty liver disease from eating too much seed. That's because seeds are high in fat. If the bird was in the wild, eating these things wouldn't be so bad, they could fly for hours to burn off the fat . In our homes they don't usually get the chance to fly that far . I'm not disputing most of your table foods, just the ones really high in fat :p If your birb gets a varied diet and lots of exercise to burn it off then maybe it isnt so bad, processed foods arent so good for us either . I try to stay away from weiners myself.
 

nightfly

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But birds die from fatty liver disease from eating too much seed. That's because seeds are high in fat. If the bird was in the wild, eating these things wouldn't be so bad, they could fly for hours to burn off the fat . In our homes they don't usually get the chance to fly that far . I'm not disputing most of your table foods, just the ones really high in fat :p If your bird gets a varied diet and lots of exercise to burn it off then maybe it isn't so bad, processed foods aren't so good for us either. I try to stay away from weiners myself.
I would counter that I bet most of those birds were cage bound most of the time. Even though pet owners start out with the best intentions, most get lax over time, and probably wind up leaving their birds stuck in their cages. Hot dogs? Why not, once in a while? One hot dog isn't going to kill you, me, or even a bird (as I've successfully proven over the years). I have them once or twice a month. And so, so do my birds. I don't feed them a whole hot dog, of course. Just a slice. I think the most they ever got was one new years eve party long ago, when they each got a cocktail frank that was baked into some biscuit dough. Hey, it was happy new year. They each get a tiny bag of chips for Christmas, too, which they actually seem to enjoy opening more than actually eating what's in them.

Just like diabetics shouldn't have ice cream, one spoonful isn't going to kill any of them.

And lets remember that the vast majority of human foods are 'processed'. Cooking, pastuerization, cleaning, cutting into parts, removing other parts, seasoning, is all 'processing', creating more palatable and safer foods to eat. I think it's more important to have a varied diet, than to limit ourselves and our birds to a very few things. Unfortunately, even the major pet food suppliers do this; if you look at their foods, most is limited to a very few ingredients. Dog, cat, and even most commercial bird foods are this way. While I do admire the big corporations attempts to come up with 'one food that provides EVERYTHING a parrot might need, I can't help but wonder what micro nutrition bits they might be missing. So my birds get everything in moderation.
 

rocky'smom

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Bebe gets Higgins Vita-seeds and Tropimix. He gets some type of worldly cuisines, soaked grains, mashed sweet potatoes. He gets nutriberries daily one or two. He has fresh water daily, ACV/water Tuesday and Thursday.
And to @nightfly feeding all those human foods and not feeding proper diet to your feathered buddies is wrong . Feeding humans and feeding birds are two different things and count yourself lucky. Bebe was fed so much trash human foods that he has permanent liver/kidney damage.
 

Comet

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Hi again!
I would like to add that my Oma had been given a canary of mine when I was a child. Toast was a common thing she would feed her (as a treat, along with her usual canary food being the mainstay). The canary passed after a few months, once her feathers all started falling out. She was not an elderly bird.
Moderation, as I acknowledge you have said, Nightfly, is key. However, the amount of toast that my Oma was feeding the canary could have been called "moderation", as well. Variety is a wonderful thing, and vital to the health of any animal, I agree. Just do please be careful with the sugary foods, as well, not just fatty ones, and only give very small amounts if you still choose to do so. Also watch for artificial preservatives and colours, there is no good they can gain from them, and many are toxic if given too much.
One last point: No diet we could ever give our birds is superior to the one they would get in the wild. This is complete with all of the foods they are designed to eat, and all of the nutrients they were adapted/created to need. All we can do is our best to replicate that diet.
 
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BirdGuy21

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If anyone thinks feeding a diet consisting of "hamburgers, hot dogs, chicken, PBJ sandwiches, pizza, lasagna, spaghetti, noodles Romanoff, Stroganoff, potato soup, tomato soup, cheese soup, various noodle soups, pineapple, cake, twinkies, you name it, they get it" is a healthy and acceptable diet for companion parrots is flat out wrong. You can attempt to justifty it however you want, it still doesn't make it right.

In the end it is always the birds who suffer because of human hubris.
 
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