What to feed your bird
Feeding Your Parrot
The basic diet for all hook billed birds mainly consists of seeds and nuts. There are many commercially prepared feed blends available, usually sold as small, medium, and large parrot mixes based on the size and type of seeds they contain. As long as they are fresh and insect free any of these are acceptable as a starting point for feeding your parrot, but to keep your bird happy and healthy you will need to supplement those feeds.
Parrots, like humans, are omnivorous, which means that they will eat just about any type of food, even meat. What your particular bird will or won’t eat will be based mainly on his preferences and what you choose to feed him. As with human beings, the trick is everything in moderation. Keep your birds diet as varied as possible but don’t allow him to over do it.
If you own one of the smaller hook bills, budgies, cockatiels or lovebirds, your best bet for feeding them is to stick to fresh fruits and vegetables in addition to their regular seed diet. They are small animals with tiny digestive tracts so you don’t want to clog them up with a lot of food that is not high in nutritional value.
For the medium and large parrots you can be much more adventurous. There are some parrot owners that sit down to meals with their birds in tow and allow them to sample whatever is being served at the meal. In general this is not the best way to go about feeding your bird but it does give you a sense of just how varied their diet can be. Make sure to keep fresh fruits and vegetables a regular part of their diet but feel free to try breads, eggs, dairy products and even meats. Stay away from processed foods because they contain a lot of additives that may be harmful to your bird.
How the food is presented can also make it more interesting to your bird. An un-shucked ear of corn is more fun to eat than a dish of corn. You can also try growing your own sunflowers and putting the entire flower in the cage once the seeds have matured. This gives them the fun of picking out each individual seed as well as giving then the additional nutrition in the flower’s stem and petals.
Take the time and explore the possibilities. A varied and interesting diet will not only make your parrot healthier but also keep them from becoming bored. Just be sure to start with small amounts of anything new until you are sure how their system will react to it.
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