Sun Conure Diet

miss.maddie

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Jun 10, 2018
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Detroit
Parrots
Sun conure
Hello everyone! So a few days ago I made a post about me adopting a new three-year-old sun conure. I decided to name her Marlo! So Marlo and I have become best friends. Inseparable haha. Iā€™d like to think that her diet is okay but quiete honestly, this has been harder than I thought. So what I thought I would do is type out what she currently eats in a day and maybe Iā€™d get some feed back on what to change.

So for breakfast, I start off with a mash. In it includes: carrots, sweet potato bell pepper, broccoli, apples, kiwi, brown rice, and quinoa.

So here is the first issue. She eats it and I can see her swallowing it. But I give her about a tablespoon of mash a day and she doesnā€™t even get thru half of it. Anyway. That will be left out in the cage for around an hour or two and then itā€™s thrown away.

For lunch, I give her her pellets which are about an eighth of a cup or so. She doesnā€™t finish them but she does eat quite a few. The pellets are then there for the remainder of the day.

And finally, for dinner, she has her pellets and usually a slice of fruit which she will nibble on. And maybe a teaspoon of seeds.

This is what she eats in a day. Also, once a week I will give her a hard boiled egg to nibble on for added calcium. What should I change or add to her diet? Any advice is appreciated!
 

Skittys_Daddy

Well-known member
Jan 6, 2014
2,172
63
Lewiston, Maine
Parrots
Neotropical Pigeon - "Skittles" (born 3/29/10)
Cockatiel - "Peaches" (1995-2015) R.I.P.
Budgie - "Sammy"
(1989-2000) R.I.P.
Budgie - "Sandy"
(1987-1989) R.I.P.
What was her previous diet? What did it consist of? Thats your best starting point. Knowing what she used to eat, used to like etc and building on that and making necessary changes.



It would seem to me that your sun isn't eating much, but that's without knowing more info. My Skittles is a little piggy. He can easily eat 2-3 tbsp of food a day. But thats not taking into account what falls on the floor.
 
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miss.maddie

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Jun 10, 2018
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Detroit
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Sun conure
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She was on an all seed diet with no fruit or veggies at all. Her diet was terrible
 

Aratingettar

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May 29, 2018
707
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Poland
Parrots
Sun tĢ¶eĢ¶rĢ¶rĢ¶oĢ¶rĢ¶iĢ¶sĢ¶tĢ¶ CĢ¶oĢ¶nĢ¶uĢ¶rĢ¶eĢ¶ terrorist Cytrynka (F),
Peach faced lovebird Fiona (F),
Peach faced lovebird Fionek (M)
Hi Miss.maddie,
Warm welcome to you and Marlo. Seems that the question on a proper diet surfaces very frequently, I also asked this question not that long ago and this way started very interesting discussion with lot of valuable and important input from experienced conure owners. Please take a look there:
http://www.parrotforums.com/conures/75670-sun-conure-s-diet.html
If you don't mind, please continue asking questions there and maybe this way we'll build our Community Body of Knowledge on Conure diet which will be easy to find and referenced for future Conure owners. :orange:
 

EllenD

New member
Aug 20, 2016
3,979
65
State College, PA
Parrots
Senegal Parrot named "Kane"; Yellow-Sided Green Cheek Conure named "Bowie"; Blue Quaker Parrot named "Lita Ford"; Cockatiel named "Duff"; 8 American/English Budgie Hybrids; Ringneck Dove named "Dylan"
Welcome!

I would certainly add some things to her diet, namely a fortified, enriched, much varied seed-mix. Not all seeds are bad, and you must keep in-mind that bird's natural diet consists of many different types of seeds, grains, nuts, etc. There are many different purposes that eating seeds serves parrots, and nutrition is only one of them. Obviously you don't want to feed her a junky seed-mix full of nothing but sunflower seeds (though sunflower seeds in very small quantities do provide much nutrition). There are several extremely healthy seed-mixes that contains a wide-variety of ingredients, which is the key to choosing one. I suggest checking-out Tropimix, Sunseed Vita-Prima, Vita-Seed California Mix...All of these are available with or without sunflower seeds and/or safflower seeds.

So basically, no matter what your schedule is, your bird needs to be eating a healthy, low-sugar pellet, a varied, fortified seed-mix, and fresh-veggies every day, with only a very small portion of fruit a day, as it's full of sugar naturally. And it doesn't seem like your bird is eating enough food to me either, I agree with the above. The amount is small overall, and then you're saying she doesn't even eat it all. This is most-likely due to the fact that you simply switched her over without a slow-transition from her old diet, so that's probably the reason that she's not eating a lot of what you're offering her. There's a very good Transition-Guide on here written by Harrison's that you should follow to ensure that your bird likes what she's eating, and that she's eating enough food daily.

I'd also invest in a digital kitchen scale and weigh her daily (at the exact same time every day, don't switch-up times), and write down the date/time/weight, and watch this to ensure she's not losing weight...
 

EllenD

New member
Aug 20, 2016
3,979
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State College, PA
Parrots
Senegal Parrot named "Kane"; Yellow-Sided Green Cheek Conure named "Bowie"; Blue Quaker Parrot named "Lita Ford"; Cockatiel named "Duff"; 8 American/English Budgie Hybrids; Ringneck Dove named "Dylan"
On an off-topic note, or rather a question for you...How is she adjusting to a name-change? I've not heard of many people changing a adult bird's name after 3 years...Just wondering how that's going, as they do have the intelligence of a 3-4 year old toddler, and I'd think changing the name of a 3-year old bird might be confusing to her...
 
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miss.maddie

New member
Jun 10, 2018
9
0
Detroit
Parrots
Sun conure
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She had no name before :( it was very sad to me. She is actually responding generally well! Iā€™m training her currently to fly to me every time I say ā€œMarlo comeā€ and there has been some great progress!
 

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