Slightly bald...

Hey there
Now I have a 1 year old Electus called Rocko, last year our parrot began to have slight loss of feathers right in his neck so we took him to the vet, they said it was some kind of 'fungus' and said it was the food. So we took other pellets, but it didn't change. After that we heard that we should stop feeding him the pellets, so we did stop feeding them for a while and the it stopped and he looks great again... but I'm wondering, isnt not feeding pellets bad for the parrot? Doesnt he miss out on alot of vitamin etc? Please help.

Pellets are the best diet. Make sure he is getting lots of fruits and veggies for his vitamins. What pellets were you feeding him?

We give him fruits all the time, we were feeding him Ecobird.

Hello & congrats on your new ekkie.

While 'general parrot care' covers the recommendation of feeding pellets, this doesn't mean the eclectus parrot. unfortunately the eclectus parrot does extremely badly being offered pellets. They do extremely well being offered a healthy fresh soft food diet such as sprouts, fruit & veg & cooked foods.

If this problem has ceased while your ekkie was off the pellets then it may have been a reaction to the pellets.

Ekkies are prone to health effects due to pellets, seeds, human processed foods, colours, preservative, additives etc...

Basically to keep your eclectus healthy & happy they should be fed a minimum of 80% fresh soft foods.
You can find out more here
http://www.eclectusparrots.net/sprouts

IF a pellet diet is offered it should be a very minimal amount & ONLY 100% natural eclectus specific pellets. the reason for this is if the pellets offered are too high or low in different vits it will effect your ekkies health drematically, as well as having artificial ingredients in the pack.

Hmm.... so Ekkies are the vegan hippies of the parrot world?

kim said:

Hello & congrats on your new ekkie.

While 'general parrot care' covers the recommendation of feeding pellets, this doesn't mean the eclectus parrot. unfortunately the eclectus parrot does extremely badly being offered pellets. They do extremely well being offered a healthy fresh soft food diet such as sprouts, fruit & veg & cooked foods.

If this problem has ceased while your ekkie was off the pellets then it may have been a reaction to the pellets.

Ekkies are prone to health effects due to pellets, seeds, human processed foods, colours, preservative, additives etc...

Basically to keep your eclectus healthy & happy they should be fed a minimum of 80% fresh soft foods.
You can find out more here
http://www.eclectusparrots.net/sprouts

IF a pellet diet is offered it should be a very minimal amount & ONLY 100% natural eclectus specific pellets. the reason for this is if the pellets offered are too high or low in different vits it will effect your ekkies health drematically, as well as having artificial ingredients in the pack.

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Thanks! thats really helpfull
Can I ask something tho? Hes also pretty bity.. not in an agressive way I think, but for instance when hes on your shoulder he gets bored quite fast so he bites in your ear (which can hurt... alot ) and generally when you come near his head he lashes out.. seems almost as if he is scared if i come anywhere near above his head, he also isn't very active on the playing side of things when I give him something he just stares at it and runs to my hand to climb on my shoulder again, any tips on how to encourage him to play more?

Regards, Rocko

Oh boy. Just wrote what I thought was a good post, a good page long. Then my sweet falcon landed on the keyboard and deleted the whole damn thing. I dont even know how he did it PMSL.
Alright, here goes again.
Pellets are often thought of as the best way to feed your parrot. But the world of parrots is very diverse. One can hardly expect a macaw to thrive on a diet that is ideal for a budgie. Then you have even more specialised species like lories and lorikeets who in the wild live on pollen, nectar and fruits, or fig parrots who live on mostly figs and are unable to synthisize vitamin K.
Most parrots in captivity lived throughout the twentieth century on a predominantly seed diet. Many of them lived a long time and even bred.
There are positive sides to a seed diet. First and foremost IMO is that its fun to eat. Theres entertainment to be had in the cracking of hulls and the variety of different seeds. If I had to guess Id say this is why your ectectus stopped plucking when switched to seed.
This said I think pellets are a good staple diet for most parrots.
Sidenote: falcon just got banned to the bedroom after attacking the keyboard again.
There are alot of types of pellets available these days. Your vet is going to reccomend Harrisons most of the time. Vets have been given good reason to reccomend Harrisons. But I think most vets see it in the same way they look at dog or cat food. Harrisons even has a fairly new "non allergenic" pellet.
Thing is all dog breeds, and all cat breeds come from the same species base.
Not so with parrots. Their dietary requirements are as diverse as the places they come from.
Pretty Bird has the best idea going so far IMO. Species specific diets. For instance they have a pellet just for eclectus, Eclectus Special I think. But even with this very specialised pellet if you read the feeding directions they reccomend that fresh fruits and veggies comprise thirty percent of your birds diet. I havent looked at a bag in a couple years so dont quote me on that one, but thats what I remember.
Pretty Bird has been criticised for the artificial colors and flavours added to their pellets. Again IMO this is not a very valid arguement. Yes, these things have been shown to cause some problems in isolated cases. Nothing compared to the widespread obesity in amazon parrots on a seed diet. Compared to the kidney failures of cockatiels on a pellet too high in protien.
Species specific diets are the best way to fulfill the nutritional requirements of your birds.
But pellets should not be all that is offered. We just dont know enough about what they need .
We do know that parrots are intelligent and need diversions in their often boring lives. Their diet can and should provide some of this diversion.
Its not just food, its fun. I think that some of the happiest parrots are parrots fed multiple meals a day. Its not possible for everyone to do this, dont think youre a bad parent if you cant.
A good way to compromise is to leave pellets available all the time, but once or twice a day offer fresh food or even a teaspoon of a high quality seed mix.
Variety is truly the spice of life.

Hmm.... so Ekkies are the vegan hippies of the parrot world?

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LOL yeah I guess you could say that...Eclectus parrots have been proven over & over again to do extremely well on healthy foods alone.

Can I ask something tho? Hes also pretty bity.. not in an agressive way I think, but for instance when hes on your shoulder he gets bored quite fast so he bites in your ear (which can hurt... alot ) and generally when you come near his head he lashes out.. seems almost as if he is scared if i come anywhere near above his head, he also isn't very active on the playing side of things when I give him something he just stares at it and runs to my hand to climb on my shoulder again, any tips on how to encourage him to play more?

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Ekkies love to play & do have a bad habit of getting a little carried away when they play & they can hurt if you don't stop it. If he's on your shoulder & nips or bites your remove him off your shoulder straight away & leave him on his stand or cage for a few minutes. if you do this every time he bites he'll learn pretty fast that if he wants your attention to be gentle.

Lashing out when going near his head sounds like it might be out of fear. Ekkies generally don't like their heads being touched & they all react differently. Mine will just growl if i try & touch his head. the best way around this is to simply not try & touch or go near his head to the point he will be aggressive. If he's uncomfortable about it you may make his aggression worse by continuing to try.

Ekkies usually LOVE playing with just about any toy given to them but only if they've been taught from babies. It gets harder as they get older but it isn't impossible. Try finding out the kind of toys he seems to take more interest in & concentrate on them. Play with the toy in front of him every time. Avoid having him move on to your arm by moving away when you see he's gonna head towards it. Also try different colours & see which colour he prefers. My ekkie love green & yellow toys. He can also be really nervous around new toys so I leave them sitting on his perch. If he freaks out too much I remove it & try again later & keep trying. Most of the time ekkies like to be left to their own devices to introduce themselves to new things without us interfering.

For instance they have a pellet just for eclectus, Eclectus Special I think.

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There are many species specif pellets & many brands now cater for Eclectus parrots. Unfortunately it is also known by many ekkie owners (including myself from experience) that even ekkie specific pellets can do damage to the bird. it did so to my ekkie. While many parrot species do very well on pellets, eclectus parrots are known to do poorly on them because of the high content of vitamins, even eclectus specific....ekkies cannot cope with this.

If I had to guess Id say this is why your ectectus stopped plucking when switched to seed.

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I would REALLY be interested in how you can come up with this. Ekkies can eat seed, but only some seed & only should be offered certain seeds. Ekkies do not cease plucking when being put on seed. If plucking has been stopped when being put on seed then you need to look at the food the seed has replaced. It's more than likely (not a guess) that what ever the seed had replaced is what may have caused plucking. Not only that but there are many other reasons for ekkies plucking. Generally their health is very good but they are known to be pluckers if something goes wrong. But to guess seed has stopped the plucking....that's not correct.

But even with this very specialised pellet if you read the feeding directions they reccomend that fresh fruits and veggies comprise thirty percent of your birds diet.

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You cannot compare an eclectus dietary needs to that of other parrots. It is well known their dietary needs are far different. Eclectus parrots require at least an 80% natural fresh, soft food diet.

Pretty Bird has been criticised for the artificial colors and flavours added to their pellets. Again IMO this is not a very valid arguement. Yes, these things have been shown to cause some problems in isolated cases.

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For the eclectus parrot it can be valid & has been proven. It is also far from an isolated problem in eclectus parrots, in fact it's very common.

Your post seems to be based on parrots in general. I strongly recommend you do a lot of research on eclectus parrots in regards to their diets. This bird we're discussing is an eclectus parrot, not another hardy bird species that can cope on man made food. This species parrot is very known for being extremely diet sensitive. Look them up, read the ekkie forums & you will discover quite a big difference in their dietary needs & health issues due pellet & mixes.

Hello there Kim.
I got my first three pairs of eclectus about fifteen years ago. Two of the three pairs bred that first year. we did not feed pellets at the time, but rather ABBA seed and fruits and veggies.
I am in NO way an eclectus expert, you appear to specialise in them and I will happily bow to your superior knowledge and experience.
Much of what I wrote there was fairly generic to all parrots.
As for a bird not plucking when switched to seed I thought I explained that the reason for this is that the seed is more entertaining to eat, and although I have never met an eclectus that stopped plucking for that reason I have known several other birds that did.
As I said, when I first got eclectus, I fed seed. A couple years later I switched to feeding Pretty Bird pellets. My eclectus bred well and kept immaculate feathers.
But thank you for your input Kim.

Hi

I had no intention of arguing over this, nor did I mean to upset you but you did say you did this 15 years ago.....things change a great deal over this time which is one very good reason to research species specific information in the first place, nothing ever stays the same as the research goes on.

I'm sorry you don't like what I have written, I am sorry if I came across offensive. It wasn't my intention & I am more than happy to show more if you don't believe any of it, but as I said, I had no intentions of upsetting anyone to start with. I thought some of the information may have been useful but I won't bother with it again.