Diet Questions

[Lucille]

I've ordered a scale and it should arrive tomorrow. I've been giving her green beans, carrots, brocolli and corn - of course she loves the corn best and now I see I should cut that out. What can i say, she's just a junk food bird I guess, no wonder she's a little chubola. She really likes the Avi Cakes and is starting to like the Nutriberries - how often should I give those to her? Hard to tell if she's eating or playing with the pellets, half of the time she manages to get the dish out of the holder and dumps it out, maybe she's trying to tell me something?? Oh well, she's so much fun, I love having her here with me!! We'll get this sorted out with a lot of help from my new friends on this forum - thank you!!

 

[SpringCottageParrot]

We have an Acculab scale that my husband purchased online. It has a flat surface that my bird has no issue with standing on so I didn't need to modify it with a perch...

Before making the little perch Casper had a tendency to wander off before I could get a reading on the scales.

Point noted about the sugar in fruits, thanks. The vet told us to give him Harrisons high energy pellets after his illness. On reading the ingredients I see that the main one is sunflower seed which was the cause of his enlarged liver leading to the reduced immunity and his illness, so I am a bit baffled.

 

[Lucille]

My scale arrived and Rosie weighs 613 kg. I know that I need to weigh her at the same time under the same circumstances each time but I was anxious to see where she was weight wise. Is 613 kg an average weight for a DYH?

 

[MonicaMc]

You need to weigh in grams, as that would be the most accurate. I think you mean grams instead of kilograms though!

Looking at a couple of average weights posted on the web, it seems a healthy weight for a DYH could be anywhere from 400-650. That doesn't mean that your bird is a healthy weight, since a healthy weight should be based on muscle tone and the amount of fat around the keel bone. What may be a healthy weight for one bird may not be a healthy weight for another bird of the same species.


All parrot owners should keep a weight journal of their birds (although, I admit, I don't! Especially with the little guys who aren't tame and harder to weigh on a frequent basis), since weight can fluctuate throughout the year, depending upon the time of year, health/illness and possibly things that may set them "off-balance" (i.e. fireworks scaring a parrot so they take a nose-dive in weight the next day, but pick it back up in the following days).

 

[Lucille]

The scale shows kg, g, lb and oz. I'll try again tomorrow.

 

[jennifer]

My Amazon also came to me eating an all-seed and peanut diet. As a result, her cholesterol levels were through the roof and the vet put her on cholesterol meds! (Hers was around 650.) If you haven't had blood work done at the vet yet, I would get that done ASAP!

She was very picky about new foods. I didn't like the idea of seed-based offerings like the Nutriberries. I also knew that her high cholesterol was from her poor diet, so I began to feed her a "mash" of veggies, protein, rice/grains, and fruits. I added Harrison's High-Potency Mash (for maybe 1-1.5 years...though there are some hulled sunflower seeds, this didn't impact her cholesterol), and then switched to their Adult Lifetime mash (1-1.5 years to current). I try to mix up what I put in the "base" of the mash so she doesn't get too bored with flavors/textures. She took to it really easily with hardly any transition issues. Because everything is food processed very small, it means she can't pick out things she doesn't necessarily like. I make mass quantities at a time, scoop mash into individual snack baggies, and freeze them. I thaw one every few days.

Two years later her cholesterol is fantastic - 160s I believe. To me, it was a testament as to the benefits of a good, healthy diet vs. medication alone.

 

[Lucille]

My Amazon also came to me eating an all-seed and peanut diet. As a result, her cholesterol levels were through the roof and the vet put her on cholesterol meds! (Hers was around 650.) If you haven't had blood work done at the vet yet, I would get that done ASAP!

She was very picky about new foods. I didn't like the idea of seed-based offerings like the Nutriberries. I also knew that her high cholesterol was from her poor diet, so I began to feed her a "mash" of veggies, protein, rice/grains, and fruits. I added Harrison's High-Potency Mash (for maybe 1-1.5 years...though there are some hulled sunflower seeds, this didn't impact her cholesterol), and then switched to their Adult Lifetime mash (1-1.5 years to current). I try to mix up what I put in the "base" of the mash so she doesn't get too bored with flavors/textures. She took to it really easily with hardly any transition issues. Because everything is food processed very small, it means she can't pick out things she doesn't necessarily like. I make mass quantities at a time, scoop mash into individual snack baggies, and freeze them. I thaw one every few days.

Two years later her cholesterol is fantastic - 160s I believe. To me, it was a testament as to the benefits of a good, healthy diet vs. medication alone.

I haven't gotten her cholesterol checked, guess I should to be on the safe side. I've been giving her vegetables (brocolli, cauliflower, carrots and peas) daily along with sprouts and she is eating those. She hasn't had a peanut since she came to me, I cut her back to only two or three a day and now she refuses to eat one, interesting!

It appears that the majority of people feel that an all pellet diet is best so I'm trying to get her completely off of seeds but I'm still unsure how to do that. I put a small amount of seeds in the bottom of her dish with the pellets on top, I can't tell how much of the pellets she's eating though. Any suggestions?

 

[SandyBee]

hi

We just adopted an 35 year old DYH, we are lucky because he is on a pelleted diet. But he is also a junk food lover LOL. I have been getting him to eat veggies by letting him dinner with me. He wont eat them any other way. Hasn't worked with fruit though.