Food pyramid??

[Sticky Feets]

Hi guys! So I just had Isla checked at the vet and she recommended feeding 70% pellets. I've been doing about 90% chop, 5% pellets, and 5% fruit. She gets a sprinkle of seeds on the days that she comes out to fly a few laps around the room. I heard that pellets are more of a supplement. But then I did more research yesterday and some sources are saying chop is the supplement. And the food pyramid and percentages I'm finding online all day different things. I'm so confused now.

Luckily Isla is not by any chance picky and has readily accepted nearly all the new foods I've offered in the 3 months I've had her. For chop I've use kale, spinach, lettuce, dandelions, squash, herbs, carrots bell peppers, jalapenos, a variety of sprouts, sometimes cooked veggies if I'm not lazy, and whatever vegetables I find at the store. She'll happily take any fruit though lately I've only been using them when training and limit the amount she gets. I make my own seed mix with oatmeal, quinoa, flaxseed, sesame, chia, millet, and hemp. She gets nuts only a few times a month. She has been getting more millet lately but that's because she's finally becoming more trusting of me and willing to train now. For pellets we rotate through the week between Tops, Hagen Tropimix, and Roudybush. I literally just sprinkle them over her food and I do see her actively eating them.

What is a good ratio of the different types of food I should feed her? We only do 2 meals a day and the only good she has access to 24/7 are the Nutriberries that she has to forage for. Basically a food pyramid or percentage of foods daily would be greatly appreciated!!!

 

[FeatheredM]

I always make sure my birdies have access to pellets, then I put a dish if veggies in their cage while keeping seed treats for training and for foraging

 

[Mizzely]

If you ask 25 people, you will usually get 25 different answers And it changes for some birds. Cockatiels, for instance, should have seed in their diet at a greater percentage than say, a conure.

My goal is usually 50-75% pellets, with 5-10% nuts/seeds/fruit, and the rest veggies.

My reality is that Ripley hates chop and only eats it occassionally. So he is more like 90% pellets, 5% nuts, 5% chop.

Pellets are designed to be a "complete" diet. Some brands recommend 90% of the diet be their food, others recommend 75%, with the rest of the diet being chop or other healthy additives.

Some people stress a fresh food diet and use pellets as a supplement which is fine, but if you are using it as a vitamin supplement, it would be cheaper and more effective IMO to use an actual multivitamin.

 

[Sticky Feets]

Awesome! This makes me feel better. I'll play around a see how I can increase her pellet intake, whether it's adding more to her chop or just leaving a bowl out... I just don't want food to be too easy for her to access all day if it's just left out.

 

[Monica]

It's possible to feed a pellet free diet, but then you need to make sure that everything else is balanced.

Walnuts can be fed more frequently and could be great for training treats. They're fantastic in omegas!


Jason Crean has a group on avian nutrition, known as Avian Raw Whole Food Nutrition.

 

[The_Mayor]

One thing to take into consideration when doing this is to figure out what your percentages do or should refer to.

Are we talking about percentages by volume of the food offered (in which case my birds get 99% veggies because I usually give them a large dish from which they can choose where they nibble), by weight of the food, or by calories consumed from that food?

My guess is that when experts talk about these things they mean X% of your bird's calories should come from pellets, Y% from seeds, Z% from cooked grains and other nutritionally dense foods, and A% from fruits and vegetables. What numbers X-A represent is a subject for debate, of course.

I suspect most pet owners do what I do and guesstimate it by a tablespoon of this and a teaspoon of that, etc.

 

[Momof3litt]

Awesome! This makes me feel better. I'll play around a see how I can increase her pellet intake, whether it's adding more to her chop or just leaving a bowl out... I just don't want food to be too easy for her to access all day if it's just left out.

Can you try putting pellets into foraging toys? I have a few different toys (foraging wheel, drawers, etc.) and I keep one in Argo's cage almost all the time. One compartment has my seed mix in it, but the others mostly have different types of pellets and/or dehydrated veggies. He gets pellets in his daily diet also, but he likes to eat from the toy as well. He hasn't quite mastered it, which is why I make sure to feed him pellets separately as well, but when he does, I might switch over to putting most or all of his pellets in there.

 

[Sticky Feets]

I guess I'm just trying to figure out by volume how much she needs of which types of food. Since we last saw the vet, I've been feeding her more pellets...it's more of a 50:50 ratio though. Kinda hard when you have a small bird that only eats so much volume. Would it be unsafe to let her free feed the pellets? In the morning, I put in about the amount she eats in a day...there's usually only several pellets left when I get home. I just wonder if I gave her more scoops, if she would just keep eating until the bowl was empty. I would say I'm extremely lucky that she's not a picky eater though. She will readily munch down on any brand of pellet I've offered and loves her chop at night. At night when she eats her chop and there's leftover pellets she'll hop between the bowls so the pellets are essentially gone by the end of the day.

I haven't gotten any type of foraging toy that can hold pellets, am looking into the wheel though. I just don't know how much she would actually try. She doesn't really play with toys but has shown more and more interest in the foraging ones if I put treats in there. She'll do it for several seconds and then just stops.

 

[Mizzely]

There are a few ways to judge the amount. One is to weigh her food in the morning and then weigh it again at night to see how much is left. The difference is a rough estimate of the amount she ate.

Another way is to go off of weight. Birds will usually eat 10 to 20% of their weight in a day.

I usually give unlimited pellets, a measured amount of seeds, and a generous amount of chop.

 

[Monica]

From what I've seen, birds will eat about 10% of their weight in pellets per day.... and around 15% of their weight in seeds. I've never really measured out chop however, but the more they eat of that, the less they eat of other foods.