"parrots on a pelleted diet live twice as long...

[Known Space]

...as parrots on a seed diet"*

*on average

What's the source of this claim and how accurate is it? Hype or empiricism?

 

[Mizzely]

I don't know specifically but I know that my Jardines who is 19 and has been on a seed diet all his life was very malnourished and could have died sometime soon due to organ failure or choking on mucus. He has a life expectancy of 35. So maybe not quite half, but he has spent the last god knows who long unable to climb, breathe correctly, play or fly because his body was so weak from lack of nutrients.

Seed diets are lacking MANY nutrients that birds NEED. Vitamin A, Vitamin D3, and calcium for starters. Those are vital cornerstones of a bird's diet, so it would not surprise me at all to know if it was true.

 

[Known Space]

I don't know specifically but I know that my Jardines who is 19 and has been on a seed diet all his life was very malnourished and could have died sometime soon due to organ failure or choking on mucus. He has a life expectancy of 35. So maybe not quite half, but he has spent the last god knows who long unable to climb, breathe correctly, play or fly because his body was so weak from lack of nutrients.

Seed diets are lacking MANY nutrients that birds NEED. Vitamin A, Vitamin D3, and calcium for starters. Those are vital cornerstones of a bird's diet, so it would not surprise me at all to know if it was true.

Yeah, I'm firmly in the pellets camp. Both my birbs are on a pelleted diet. I'm just talking about that specific claim: I wonder how empirical of a claim it is since it's been making rounds for years.

 

[Mizzely]

Yeah, I'm firmly in the pellets camp. Both my birbs are pellet diet. I'm just talking about that specific claim: I wonder how empirical of a claim it is since it's been making rounds for years.

No it is not empirical. Some birds long lives even with the worst care. I was just sharing that for MY bird it WOULD have essentially halved his lifespan.

 

[Porter]

My birds don't do pellets so I use pellets as one of the main ingredients of their birdie bread. Plus whatever veggies I have in the fridge that are ready to be canned go in there with organic apple sauce and egg.

I'd say its a good thing for rounding out any diet.

 

[Hankmacaw]

@Mizzely I thought it was you who had that study done at UC Davis by Lafeber on the Amazons. Maybe not - it's not on the internet any longer and I can't find it.

Any way a group of 30+ Amazons were split into two groups and the group given ONLY pellets outlived and were healthier than the contol group. This experiment occurred many years ago, but went on for 30 years.

 

[Porter]

I'd feed only pellets if I could but my guys are piccckkkky.

But they love their birdie bread lol.

 

[Mizzely]

@Mizzely I thought it was you who had that study done at UC Davis by Lafeber on the Amazons. Maybe not - it's not on the internet any longer and I can't find it.

Any way a group of 30+ Amazons were split into two groups and the group given ONLY pellets outlived and were healthier than the contol group. This experiment occurred many years ago, but went on for 30 years.

Oh right I know about that one. I think it was Roudybush? I am going to go looking. For now, I also know about this one

I know about this one: Nutritional levels of diets fed to captive Amazon parrots: does mixing seed, produce, and pellets provide a healthy diet? - PubMed - NCBI
Healthy Parrot Foods - New Study Compares Pellets, Seed and Produce

 

[SandraK]

But what about the birds that would usually eat seeds mainly in the wild? My tiels will eat veggies, rice and pasta but won't even give fruit a second look. The Quakers and gccs are almost like a clean-up crew for the most part they'll eat ANYTHING but with some it also depends on what colour the food is. My sun will eat pellets but only yellow - he pitches everything else. He prefers seeds and fresh fruit like apple. It's a balancing act.

 

[Mizzely]

But what about the birds that would usually eat seeds mainly in the wild? My tiels will eat veggies, rice and pasta but won't even give fruit a second look. The Quakers and gccs are almost like a clean-up crew for the most part they'll eat ANYTHING but with some it also depends on what colour the food is. My sun will eat pellets but only yellow - he pitches everything else. He prefers seeds and fresh fruit like apple. It's a balancing act.

My understanding is that they will eat a variety of seeds and grasses as the main diet. Wheatgrass, for instance, is a good source of vitamin A and calcium, and they would get D3 from the sun.

In the wild, they also learn from their flock what is good to eat. They also eat out of need and opportunity. In our homes they are given an abundance of food and thus are more likely to be picky because they can afford to be.

And, wild doesn't mean they are healthier, technically speaking. They are at the mercy of what is available.

 

[Mizzely]

"Mr. Roudybush has generated most of the published nutritional research in pet birds, and the research flocks of Orange-winged Amazons at the University have been maintained on nothing but Roudybush pellets since 1981; no other population of psittacines has been maintained on a commercially available, formulated diet for such a long period of time."

That's all I have found so far. I know it exists!

 

[Known Space]

We need to be careful in comparing the needs of captive versus wild parrots considering their widely different lifestyles. Their base diet may give us a glimpse at the nutrients they require, as well as what flavors and textures they enjoy. Which we can use to make informed guesses about their captive requirements. But we can't directly translate that to captivity given that different activity levels can lead to different dietary needs.

Fundamentally, it's not about foods, but about nutrients. That are eaten and metabolized. If these same nutrients come from one thing or another doesn't really matter a whole lot (gross simplification, but you get my point). If the bird eats it, enjoys it, and thrives on it. Then there's no point in giving them something else just because they eat it in nature. Foods have no metaphysical properties after all.

Oh right I know about that one. I think it was Roudybush? I am going to go looking. For now, I also know about this one

I know about this one: Nutritional levels of diets fed to captive Amazon parrots: does mixing seed, produce, and pellets provide a healthy diet? - PubMed - NCBI
Healthy Parrot Foods - New Study Compares Pellets, Seed and Produce

Yeah I'm familiar with this study, but given the low number of subjects, I tend to be wary of sharing it in the context of discussion on captive parrot diets.

 

[Mizzely]

roudybush.com.au/Pages/information.html

Aren’t seeds the natural diet for birds?

A:
No, but they can be part of it. Birds in the wild eat a variety of foods including other plant materials besides seeds and animal material such as insects and other small creatures. Birds will also vary their food intake to accommodate changes in nutrient requirements such as when they are feeding chicks, which require much more concentrated diets than their parents. Seeds alone do not provide all of the nutrients needed for growth or maintenance. Some of the nutrients required for maintenance are often deficient in seed diets and include vitamin A, vitamin D3, zinc, copper, manganese, calcium, sodium, vitamin B12, selenium and iodine. Growing birds would need other nutrients in addition including additional total protein, methionine, lysine, tryptophan, phosphorus, and some of the other vitamins. One other thing to keep in mind when we look at the diets of birds in the wild is that wild populations often fail. That is they either fail to produce young or in severe cases have high mortality of adults. When you look at what birds eat in the wild and use it as a model for what they should eat in captivity, you may be choosing a year when young died in the nest or adults starved from difficult foraging conditions. Feeding a formulated diet allows you to avoid these potential problems and concentrate on other requirements of your birds.

 

[Mizzely]

More diet stuff, still looking for the OWA study literature

(PDF) Nutrition of birds in the order Psittaciformes: A review

(PDF) The diet of adult psittacids: Veterinarian and ethological approaches

 

[Hankmacaw]

@Mizzely - I'm going to have to start paying you as my researcher.

I have a lot of faith in the Dr. Harrison's (one of the nicest people in the world), Dr. Lafeber and (Dr.?) Roudybush. For the conspiracy theorists who say they are lying to us - Pfffft.

 

[Mizzely]

http://avianmedicine.net/wp-content/uploads/2013/03/hess.pdf
Abstract
The owners of 135 pet birds were surveyed by questionnaire to determine their birds' weekly food consumption. The birds were divided into six food groups on the basis of the amounts of seeds, formulated products and human food they consumed. The formulated products and seeds were analysed for their nutrient content by two independent laboratories, the nutrient content of the human foods was obtained from a standard nutrition reference, and each bird's nutrient intake was estimated. The dietary content of individual nutrients was then compared with the estimated maintenance requirements for pet birds. Birds consuming less than approximately 50 per cent of their diets as formulated products had inadequate intakes of vitamins A and D3, and calcium. Diets high in human food were low in protein, energy, vitamins and minerals. Diets high in seed were excessive in fat and deficient in vitamins A and D3, and calcium.


And just for fun, Jean at African Queen Aviaries found she had better breeders with NO veggies!
African Queen Aviaries

 

[SandraK]

My understanding is that they will eat a variety of seeds and grasses as the main diet. Wheatgrass, for instance, is a good source of vitamin A and calcium, and they would get D3 from the sun.

In the wild, they also learn from their flock what is good to eat. They also eat out of need and opportunity. In our homes they are given an abundance of food and thus are more likely to be picky because they can afford to be.

And, wild doesn't mean they are healthier, technically speaking. They are at the mercy of what is available.

But, unfortunately, in the wild their lifespans would probably be shorter due to predators, weather and food availability. As you said, they are at the mercy of what is available. My tiels love their wheatgrass, the Quakers are "so-so" as are the gccs and Tikki looks at it as if the grass had horns & a tail & teeth.

That said, Tikki is the one bird who recognized human junk food on sight - french fries, chips, cheese (?), onion rings, cookies - almost all greasy & fried. Somebody fed him the stuff because we don't feed that to any of the fids.

 

[Mizzely]

But, unfortunately, in the wild their lifespans would probably be shorter due to predators, weather and food availability. As you said, they are at the mercy of what is available. My tiels love their wheatgrass, the Quakers are "so-so" as are the gccs and Tikki looks at it as if the grass had horns & a tail & teeth.

Yes, in the wild, there are many factors against them, including diet, that make their lives shorter than in captivity.

 

[Mizzely]

More wild diet info from Scott Echols:

Nutrition For Pets Public Group | Facebook

"There is a certain logic to understand what wild birds eat and then apply that to a captive situation.This approach was used by zoos and aviaries for a lot of their animals. However over time, the caretakers realized that these diets (if they could even be duplicated) did not meet the nutritional requirements of captive animals. They often exceeded nutritional requirements.

As an example, we can very rapidly stuff high energy hand feeding formula into a developing chick and create a super bird (often larger that its wild counterpart). Some have viewed it as good, others bad. Regardless it is obvious that wild and captive situations are very different.

The more we uncover about what parrots really eat in the wild, the less we truly understand how they survive. After all, many consume toxic foods and have some how adapted to survive the experience. What I have personally seen come out of the crop of some developing chicks reminds me more of mud and rocks than actual food.

There is clearly a complex relationship between diet, growth, maintenance and death in wild animals. I feel we are just starting to uncover what they actually eat. We are not really at the point where we can sort out the rest!

We have to look at captive animals as different beasts. In terms of foods available to feed, energy requirements, behavioral needs and more- it is all different between wild and captive birds."

 

[Begone]

The easy answer is that they eat what they find in the wild. Everything is for survival and reproduce. They are not spoiled like our parrots that have food 24/7 and can pick out only their favorites.

But I have always wonder if they really need the things we think the need.
Don't get me wrong my birds are and will always be very healthy (but pellets are for me isn't the best diet) but when I was younger my neighbor had a budgie that was 16 years old.
That budgie was only eating seed and was never out in the sun, and it was healthy.