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Food Thoughts, Facts and Opinions. Help Appreciated

Del

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Del
Although only having MaTTie a couple months I am trying to get her on a good diet and at the same time, trying to still let her have some of the things she loves as long as it is safe for her.
I figured this could be the place to get some others thoughts and opinions.
When first getting her at that point her daily diet consisted of seeds, cheeto treats and a little fruit, mainly white grapes.
She has gotten pretty good with some veggies such as steamed broccoli, cauliflower, carrots along with green beans, yellow corn, diced whole potatoes, snap peas, bean sprouts and some rice and pasta in small amounts. Of course that varies day to day as to what she will want or eat. She wants nothing to do with dark leafy veggies yet.
Of course she loves her scrambled eggs.
As far as fruits the white grapes are about it as we haven't found much else she likes. We have tried apples, bananas, oranges, strawberries and watermelon but with little or no success.
She now is about 50% seeds and 50% veggies. She won't touch pellets or avi cakes.
We have tried multiple flavors of nutri berries but to her these are just cannon balls to be thrown out of her bowl and across her cage, almost like she is saying, how many times do I have to tell you to keep these out of my bowl.
We are going to keep trying to add more veggies and keep trying fruits but there are some specific questions I do have about certain items.
1) Peanuts. I know that there seems to be some debate on them and an article I read the other night basically said that the human grade nuts would be OK as they were a much better and safer grade than the nuts found in bird seed bags. I throw out the shelled peanuts in her food but a couple times a week I do give her the shelled nuts I get from the store as she loves them and am trying to figure out if even these human grade nuts are safe to give her.
2) MaTTie has one of the larger acrylic type forging balls with the beak slots hanging in her cage. What I have been putting in it a couple times a week is Triscuit Wheat Berry Cluster, Cherries & Almonds. She LOVES this and whether in her ball or small pieces in her bowl, it's the first thing she goes after. Does anyone else give this to their birds or have any thoughts on her having it?
I tried the nutria berries in her ball and she just looked at it like I was crazy to put them in there.
3) Whenever I have any of the following she is not happy until she gets some: steak, chicken or chicken sandwiches, park chops, hamburger (well done) and even a hot dog weenie. I break off little pieces and she goes crazy over any of them so once again..... safe or not?
I guess these are some of my main questions and was hoping to get some feedback as to and I giving her anything that i should stop?
Thanks in advance for ANY thoughts on any of these items.
 

Shezbug

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I do not give any peanuts as they are not only a health risk but they are not very healthy for our birds anyway.......try almonds or a healthier nut that carries more benefits and no danger to feed for your bird.
Aspergillosis is one big reason we stay away from peanuts- the other big reason is they really are not healthy and we have options to feed healthy nuts.

I have not heard of the things you are putting in your forage ball- we do not seem to have as much of a variety to choose from here in Australia so I can not offer any help there I am sorry.

I do offer small pieces of cooked chicken breast or white fish once a week to Burt but I much prefer him to get his protein from healthier sources like beans/ chickpeas and recently we have tried tofu again without any success but there is a massive heap of it there so he is gonna get a lot of chances in the next few days to throw it at me lol.
I personally would never give hamburger or hot dog- Burt has tried the smallest amount of steak once......Animal fats are not the best for our birds to consume.
@Mizzely has some really great write ups on converting diets and tonnes of other health information. @Hankmacaw has posted a lot of information on which types of fats are healthy for birds and also lots of information on Aspergillosis.
 

Mizzely

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Human grade or not, peanuts grow in the ground and the in shell nuts in particular can still carry aspergillosis spores. It's technically a risk with any shelled nut but far greater with peanuts simply due to how they grow. That being said, peanuts are not my first choice and I do avoid them, as almonds are a healthier choice. African Greys also seem to need more calcium than some other species and almonds are a good source!

The Triscuit wheat berries I would only offer as a treat, and not too often, as they have both added salt and sugar which they simply don't need.


Screenshot_20200228-055344.png

I do not give animal products besides the occasional egg yolk to my bird. Animal products have been linked to atherosclerosis in captive animals. Again it's your decision but if you're going to give them, give unsalted - which means no processed ones like hot dogs.

There are SO many kinds of pellets and sometimes they can be pretty resistant to eating them, especially if they are getting foods that have sugar, salt, and fat. Parrots have a considerably smaller amount of taste buds compared to us, so offering many foods that light up their flavor sensors can cause them to reject more boring food like vegetables and pellets. So reducing the seeds, peanuts, Triscuits, and meats will help with better diet overall.


The things I have the most luck with as far as pellets go are Zupreem Fruity, and Harrison's Bird Bread. I've converted every bird I've ever had to pellets using Zupreem as a gateway pellet (they have sugar which helps convert seed junkies) and then usually I can get them on something I prefer more. It's not an overnight process though; my Quaker took 6 months!

Harrison's Bird Bread uses their pellets for the flour, and most birds like bread, so while you're converting it at least is getting some vitamins and minerals into them.

This has a lot of great tips:

 

Snowghost

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I would keep trying the nutri berries, Paco threw them too. I would get all excited and call them treats and his berries, I switch now between them and avi cakes. It takes a while. Also try letting the bird go a little hungry in the morning its easier to introduce new food for him. Also try warm food, jasmine rice, he really goes bonkers over cauliflower rice, so I hide chopped up broccoli in it, he likes his carrots cubed, not sliced or raw. Try different shapes, steamed or on a skewer. Its a journey trying to introduce different things. I have had him now almost a year and I still introduce different items. No peanuts, he now munches on almonds and no animal meat, rarely eggs. You could try chop as well, Paco won't touch it. But I keep trying and he will binge on a veggie, right now he is hooked on broccoli, can't wait for summer so I can get fresh corn on the cob.
 

jh81

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Make eating healthy food a funny game! The bird wants your food because he sees you eating it. parrots are mostly flock birds who eat together. Some people had luck when they would eat the fruits and veggie’s together with their birds. You might try that. Eat the food first, make a show out of it, dramatize on how wonderful it tastes. “HHHMMMM THIS REALLY TASTES WONDERFUL!” Chances are your bird wants to try eating it too! Obviously he allready knows you eat delicious things like hotdogs and hamburgers. Now you have to convince him Broccoli is just as tasty :rofl:

i had a grey who was raised on bread and pizza, he would sit on my shoulder and want to grab everything from my mouth. Thats how i got him to eat healthy. Human saliva is bad for birds so thats something to watch out for!
 

Hankmacaw

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I would add a couple of things. First I want to empathize that CAGs and TAGs are both very susceptible to Atherosclerosis. For this reason alone never ever clip their wings. They need to fly for this reason and for their general mental and physical health. It may be somewhat troublesome to you, but it's the bird not you that counts. Keep their diet lean again to fight against heart disease and atherosclerosis.

Second, Greys seem to be more likely to contract Aspergillosis, a fungal infection with very high morbidity. I fought the disease with two birds for years and won, but it was expensive money wise and emotionally.

www.parrotalert.com

Peanuts in shells and danger of Aspergillosis to Parrots
Peanuts in shells AKA monkey nuts, have a hidden danger of Aspergillosis that can kill your parrot. Poor storage of peanuts can lead to an infection by the mold fungus Aspergillus flavus, releasing the toxic substance aflatoxin.
www.parrotalert.com
www.parrotalert.com

Long but thorough;
Aspergillosis / Aflatoxins in Pet Birds | Beauty of Birds
Aspergillosis in Pet Birds: Symptoms, Diagnosis, Treatment
www.beautyofbirds.com

If you do get an AG, then you should never get a New World bird. African Greys along with cockatoos and cockateils are "Powder Down" birds. Part of their physiology is that their feathers break down into a fine powder as part of their grooming and feather health. This powder goes everywhere and gets into everything. When it gets into a New World bird's lungs, it eventually kills that bird.

Cardio, Respiratory and Circulatory Diseases
I'm starting this thread so we on AA can have full discussion of these diseases. How they begin, how to reduce the risk for your bird(s), the symptoms to watch for and the cures and palliative care available. In recognition of Holiday's loss of Zoe we will start with Pulmonary Hypersensitivity...
forums.avianavenue.com

Here is a chronicle, written by @BertAllen , about his experience raising a baby CAG named Tinker. Very good and lots of insight about raising a baby CAG (as well as any baby bird).

Well Tinker is home
Tinker hatched May 3rd 2018. No idea of the sex but we will treat him as a male till future evidence says different. We have been visiting him every week for the last month. I believe that was the reason for his move to our home being so influential to his moving day. Today he had his first car...
forums.avianavenue.com
 

Hankmacaw

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Your diet for your bird is very high in Sugars and fats. Both of which are particularly dangerous for African Greys and Timnehs. Cut way down on any fruits that you give your bird and completely cut out grapes - they are very high in sugar. Sugar metabolizes directly to fat. Excess fats cause many issues including fatty liver disease.


Every time you give your bird meat you are giving then a shot of saturated fats that cause high lipids in the blood which cause clumping of blood cells which cause atherosclerosis which cause seizures and strokes. It's really that simple. Egss should not be in your bird's diet more than once a week and preferably only egg whites then.

Pellets aren't magic, but decades of study has been done by people like Dr. Harrison and Dr. Lafeber to develop the best combination of nutritious food for a bird. A good pellet should always be the basis for any diet for a bird. There are several of the pellet producers who will send you samples upon request.

It sounds like she is started well on vegetables, so emphasize the vegetables.
 

Del

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Thank you all for the advice. I think the squirrels are going to be quite happy getting the peanuts that we have left.
She actually is doing great on her veggies and just like Lincee said, she will walk right over and eat things, mainly veggies off my plate like she is doing something special BUT she will throw a nutri berry right off my plate just like she does if I dare put those things in her bowl.
I'm not giving up on the nutria berries either and maybe one day she might try them and decide they are better eating than throwing. Snowghost, how long was it before Paco finally figured out they were better to eat than throw as Mattie has been throwing them for over 2 months now. I will give her credit though, she's gotten good at aiming them. I can play and call them treats or whatever but she still looks at me like, well you call them whatever you want but if you want 'em then you eat them. Lol
I intend to keep adding the pellets to her daily diet and perhaps one day she may actually try them instead of turning her nose up at the thought on eating "those things" I think I will try the Zupreem Fruity ones.
I tried to even put 1 piece of the Triscuit Wheat Berries into her foraging ball along with several flavors of the nutra berries. Of course she managed hang upside down to get her favorite out and the Nutri's hung in the ball for me to throw out. I had to laugh at her though.
Good thing about her is she likes the veggies and has really taken to the steamed ones but it's one of those things that what she loves today, tomorrow she looks at it and me like, you really want me to eat this.
Mizzely thanks for taking the time to check out the Wheat Berry mix. She isn't going to be happy but she will get cut back quite a bit on them. That was actually one of the things she loves and I was thinking was good for her. Shezbug at least she does like regular almonds on most days although only if already shelled as if I give her one in the shell it becomes another throw toy. What is weird to me, she loves the peanuts and I bought a jar of roasted, unsalted peanuts and she doesn't care for them at all. That's fine though as I do like them. I even tried to sit next to her in my recliner and eat some and offer her one and of course she took it and politely dropped it that quick.
She still asks for the Cheetos she had for treats before I got her but those things pretty much vanished when she came home.
I think we will concentrate more on the veggies now and let the fruits alone, especially the grapes.
It's advice like this i was looking for that finally convinced me to quit reading and join here.
Hankmacaw, her wings haven't been clipped and that's one thing I won't be doing. She has only flew a few times and her landings aren't perfect but even so, I won't clip her. Also thank you for the links which I intend to read all of them.
Once again, thank you all and not only do I appreciate it but in the long run MaTTie will be so much better off because of it.
 

Rain Bow

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You also never want to let them have pork. Very bad for parrots as they cannot digest it properly.
 
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