Cayenne and Paprika Powder as Supplements?

Hello! Sorry I keep making new threads. Just when I thought I have all the information I need, I open someone's thread and I get a brand new set of questions to ask. That's why I love this forum.

I read in someone's thread about a macaw with vitamin A deficiency. It made me examine my sun conure's diet closely and I realized he gets OK vitamin A but it could be vastly improved. He doesn't eat his pellets as much as he should (like 5% of his diet) but eats tons of fresh produce and other natural and processed supplements.

In my research, it shows paprika and cayenne powders have crazy amounts of vitamin A and is in fact ranked #2 in a top 30 list. I was wondering if the regular stuff you get off the grocery spice rack could be used as a supplement to our birds? He already eats crushed red peppers so why not the paprika and cayenne powder? What does everyone think?

Really read the labels. Some of the powdered stuff off the shelf, can have other ingredients in them that may NOT be good for our babies. Have you considered going to a health food store, buying the seeds for these items and sprouting them? The sprouts, when the tails of them just begin to poke from the seed, is one of the safest, healthy source of food for all of our bird kids. It's also fresh, not sitting on a shelf in a store. Not to mention, because you are seeing the sprout from the seed, YOU know how fresh. The longer any product sits on a shelf, prior to the warehouse, the truck that delivered it to the warehouse, etc., etc, the more vitamin content is lost. There's some wonderful resources on sprouting food for parrots on the web. I'm not sure if I am allowed to mention. It's really easy, and not expensive. In fact it's very cost saving as a matter of fact. You'd be amazed. I adore my Jenday. What a cutie my Bob is. I really hope this helps, REALLY!

Cayenne pepper is also an excellent coagulant when an emergency blood stop is needed.

weco said:

Cayenne pepper is also an excellent coagulant when an emergency blood stop is needed.

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I think there are better coagulants, like corn starch or even wheat flour. It is the cellulose in the plant fibers that help blood coagulate, not the phytochemicals in cayenne, from what I understand.

jendaymumma said:

Really read the labels. Some of the powdered stuff off the shelf, can have other ingredients in them that may NOT be good for our babies. Have you considered going to a health food store, buying the seeds for these items and sprouting them? The sprouts, when the tails of them just begin to poke from the seed, is one of the safest, healthy source of food for all of our bird kids. It's also fresh, not sitting on a shelf in a store. Not to mention, because you are seeing the sprout from the seed, YOU know how fresh. The longer any product sits on a shelf, prior to the warehouse, the truck that delivered it to the warehouse, etc., etc, the more vitamin content is lost. There's some wonderful resources on sprouting food for parrots on the web. I'm not sure if I am allowed to mention. It's really easy, and not expensive. In fact it's very cost saving as a matter of fact. You'd be amazed. I adore my Jenday. What a cutie my Bob is. I really hope this helps, REALLY!

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Thanks for the replies, very helpful!

I was also wondering how paprika and cayenne powders could be so high in vitamin A versus their fresher counterparts. I don't know how reputable the list is but it also shows up as #2 in a different top 10 list. It clearly states powder which means processed to some degree (but then again so are pellets).

What I was looking to do was to be able to incorporate vitamin A to foods that Boomer adores, which is normally low on or void of vitamin A. He gets vitamin A loaded foods but the ones he eats more of are the ones that aren't (apples, spinach leaves, blue berries, banana for example).

I thought it was something versatile, quick and easy to do, and if it has great nutritional benefits, i thought it would have caught on by now. So I don't know if I'm missing anything like a downside to the powders (you've named one so far: the possibility of lower vitamin A values due to prolonged shelf life).

I'll read up more on it and update this thread when i have something new.