Salt

I have seen photos of large flocks of wild parrots gathering at salt licks in South America. I am curious as to why it is believed that parronts should avoid salt in the diets of their pets. I understand restricting seeds. That just creates fat and no nourishment. But I don't understand the salt concern.

For the record, I am diligent in my birds avoiding salty foods. I would just like to understand the reason. For us, it is blood pressure thing.

It’s one think to lick a salt lick occasionally once a week, it’s another to get 100x per day more than any one time at a salt lick would give you. If we didn’t avoid salt, they’d be getting far too much. And they have precious little ability to expel the salt, since they don’t sweat like humans do. They accumulate salt in their bodies easily.

Also, many of it is often not salt licks, but rather clay licks. Parrots often eat foods in the wild containing toxins, such as seriously underripe fruit. The clay binds the toxins so it can’t harm them, like activated charcoal. This practice is pervasive in the animal kingdom.

[EDIT: Chris summed it up nicely. Just click on the links in mine if you're bored ]


I found this link, which might help: Salt in Bird Diet | TheTameParrot.com - Let's Try To Solve Your Parrot Problems

To summarise, yes, salt is a good mineral. However, human proportions of salt aren't good for bird-sized creatures. Plus their kidneys don't function like ours with the ability to handle high levels of sodium - their bodies (like ours) will try to flush out excess sodium, but because they can't process it as well as we can, it can end up with them dehydrated.

So because it's so hard to gauge the perfect amount of salt (not too much is key), it's safer to explain that salt can dehydrate your bird severely. Apparently one macaw has died from brain swelling due to unlimited access to salted nuts. But wild parrots, such as the South American parrots and some Greys, do consume amounts of sodium. That being said, I trust Mother Nature and evolution to sort out how much is healthy for them; but for domestic birds whose lifestyles are so different, like most things, it's better to be safe than sorry