Diet tips please for a 1st time Macaw owner

What types of table foods are good for Macaws? Is there anything we eat that is dangerous for my Macaw? I read that they like oatmeal and cream of wheat. Sugar or no sugar on cereal? I want everything to be perfect for my baby. I give him a good seed mixture from the Aviary and every fruit I can find to buy plus peanuts. I welcome all suggestions. My Macaw was sold to me as a 4 year old but turns out he is 12 years old. He is a beautiful Blue and gold. I have had him for 2 weeks and he has stolen my heart. I can't imagine life without him. I am handicapped and walk with a cane. I think he is afraid of the cane. How can we fix this problem?

Most birds can actually eat just about anything humans can. There some things that they should only have a limited amount of and very few things which they absolutely cannot have.

Things they cant have:

Avocado
Chocolate
Coffee
Iceberg Lettuce
Apricot
Asparagus
Peach - the seeds
Hemp
Garlic - Ok in small amounts

Those are the common ones. If you google toxic foods for birds you can probably find a complete list.

Also most seeds or pits in fruits/veggies are toxic so make sure to not give them as a whole. And then there are others such as strawberries which are commonly sprayed with pesticides so generally isn't recommended but personally i have a given strawberries to my birds before and they LOOVE them but boy are they are messy. It is recommended that you should feed only organic foods but it's not mandatory, if you wash them well before hand it should be ok.

Also nuts are great protein too. My senegal parrot adores almonds and peanuts(unsalted) just make sure to not give too much but a couple here and there is great protein for their diet.

You even give egg, or chicken(i don't know why but i find this weird to give birds chicken and egg... it's like cannibalism almost ...lol) I've never actually given my birds egg or chicken aside from some egg food sprinkled on top of their pellets a once in awhile. So you would have to look into the specific ways that are ok or i can look it up for you in a minute.

Mashes are quite common in the bird world. A lot of people give their birds a mash which can include a variety of veggies and fruits and nuts even mixed together and often people make a huge batch and freeze it and then warm it in the morning and then they leave pellets or their regular food in the cage through out the day as a snack.

That also reminds me to mention that if you do give fresh foods make sure to remove it after an hour or so it doesn't get all bacteria filled and so on and harm and make your bird sick.

Brown rice is also ok to give and another thing people often put in mashes. Grains and plain pasta(even uncooked pasta) is enjoyed by many birds.

Also more ideas in the link below.



Feeding Large/Small Birds: Protein, Whole Grains, Nuts, Fruits, Vegetables


I'll ad to this tomorrow. Hope that helped for now.

meghanxx4 said:

egg, or chicken(i don't know why but i find this weird to give birds chicken and egg... it's like cannibalism

Click to expand...

Parrots are no more related to chickens than we are to cows. Do steak houses cater to cannibals?

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Eppie, have you worked on getting him switched from seeds to pellets? If not this would be a very good idea as well.

In regards to the cane it will likely just take time for him to get used to it. Be patient. Habituation is all about seeing the stimulus (cane) and having NOTHING happen. If he is anxious when he sees the cane of course you shouldn't scold, but also do not try to 'comfort' him; just wait calmly so you neither frighten him more nor validate his fear.

Do you by chance have more than one cane? If so the best thing to do would be to leave one cane in his room all the time just sitting next to his cage or leaning up against a wall. Every couple days you could switch out which cane you are using and which one is sitting by his cage so he can get used to both of them and eventually they will not need to be left there.

A friend of mine use to be a human doctor, but retired early, and bought an exotic bird store. He says that he has done tonnns of research into the vitamins that birds need and what they get in their foods.

Birds make enough vitamin C naturally, and many fruits are not that important to their diets. It is alot better to give them fruits than other things like seeds.

What they do not make enough of is vitamin A and (ithink he said) vitamin B. This is most commonly found in veggies, but the best source is in dark green vegetables like broccoli and green beans. So if you can teach your bird to like these things, you would be doing the parrot a huge favor. (i just posted a birdie bread recepie that is really simple, and really good for birds.)

What he thinks is just awful to give birdds is most seeds, especially peanuts and sunflower seeds. he says that these seeds provide no nutritional value to birds, and all of the fat and other things in seed is very damaging to the liver.

If you think about it, in the wild a bird will never really come across seeds. They might occassionally find a sunflower, but they would eat other parts of the flower that would give them nutritional value. Why we started giving birds seed is beyond me...

He is an extremeist and never gives any seed to his birds, but i will ignore parts of what he says, and sometimes give it to my bird as a treat. (a peanut here or there)

As for other foods, you have got to remember that if you give them something bad, IE a potato chip, it can have bad effects, mainly on their livers. Feeding a bird one potato chip is as damaging as feeding a human 250 potato chips.

anyways, good luck with everything. Getting him on a mainly pellet diet is probably the most important suggestion anyone can give. Zupreem or other good pellets provide most of what birds need. I hope what i learned from him, and passed on will help you and others.

Same experience here.

When we bought our bird we bought some varieties of food, both the small pellets and the course ones, we also bought a mix that is similar to trail mix made for parrots it has fruits and nuts, some seeds in it. We also fed him veggies.

We Quickly found out that if we give him all these varieties of foods in his cage he will ONLY specifically pick out the almonds, peanuts and pistashio, and mango fruits. He ignored the fresh veggies and the pellets. In other words, put out a huge variety of food and he is only going to pick out the bits of junk food and ignore the rest. LOL

We got wise to this antic, we took out the fruits and nuts mix from his cage and gave him ONLY the pellet type food. We have also been supplementing some veggies but our bird will only eat corn, he doesn't like all this extra variety. We only give him the nut mix on his outside perch as a sort of treat.

He actually likes the pellets now and I am sure that its very healthy food. The brands of pellets I use is Harrisons and also Totally Organic and its quality organic food you won't find at the market or probably even Petco.