As someone who is 37 years old and who has had chronic calcium-oxalate kidney stones since the age of 19 (I've probably passed somewhere between 50-100 stones large enough that I knew about them, had a cystoscopy to remove one that got stuck, and ended up in the hospital for a month and had to take the fall semester of my sophomore year of college off because I got a horrible urinary tract infection from a stone causing a urine obstruction, which caused a horrible kidney infection, which caused sepsis, I'm well aware of calcium and oxalate food sources. I have to keep my intake of both low, so I'll probably have osteoporosis soon, but it's the lesser of two evils. Both of my urologists (one a kidney stone expert and researcher) have basically told me that some people are just "stone collectors", and can't process calcium, so it remains free when I eat it and binds to free oxalate, forming stones. I actually eat little to no oxalate food sources so that I can intake some calcium sources, it helps a bit, but I just passed a 6mm stone two months ago that looked like spiky boulder
. Oye.
Anyway, a lot of people don't realize what food actually has the most calcium in it. They immediately think DAIRY, and that's just incorrect.
I don't know why you want to increase your bird's calcium, but I can tell you that he will absorb 50%+ more calcium from the food he eats than he will from supplements. Most calcium taken in from "pills" is not absorbed by the body and just goes right into the urine (this is actually true of most vitamins and minerals, if taken in "pill" form most of the vitamin or mineral does not get absorbed into the bloodstream but rather into either the urine or fat stores, depending on whether it is water soluble or fat soluble). So you want your bird to take the calcium in by eating food with a large calcium content and not give him supplements.
The food that contains the most calcium by far are the dark green, leafy veggies like kale, spinach, bok choy, collards, mustard, romaine lettuce, etc. Any leafy, dark green veggies contain 10x the amount of digestible calcium that dairy products contain. Next on the list are sesame seeds and chia seeds, which birds love. Again, way more digestible calcium than dairy. Next are oranges (believe it or not), which are a good choice for birds because they also have a lot of digestible potassium, vitamin A, and beta carotene. My birds all love fresh squeezed orange juice with nothing else added! Next are winged beans, then white beans, then navy beans. Then quinoa, another favorite of my birds. Up next is broccoli, which my green cheek would eat all day if I let him, then black molasses, which I wouldn't feed to a bird but there you have it. Another good one for birds are raw almonds, they are loaded with calcium, as well as dried figs. There are also some herbs that are full of digestible calcium, such as dill, basil, and the dark, flat leaf parsley.
Everything I have just listed contain more absorbable, digestible calcium than milk, cheese, or eggs/eggshells.
How do I know this? Besides having the kidney stone issue I also bred English and American budgies for 20 years starting when I was 16 years old. When I first started breeding the budgies I would feed my breeders commercial egg food and ground up eggshells, and provided a calcium block. My mom had bred cockatiels and budgies for years and this is what she fed her breeders. Then at 19 the kidney stones started, and I was immediately put on a strict low calcium, low oxalate diet. I went to seminars and since I was going to school to be a Doctor or Veterinarian, I did my kidney stone diet research in coordination with my animal science degree. I just typed all of those foods by grabbing my breeding Diet and Supplement notebook I've kept for 20 years. I used it to keep track of the breeder's/baby's diets, supplements, medications, weights, etc. So I eliminated the egg food/eggshells and started my breeders on a fresh food diet consisting of only these foods along with their pellets, and in 20 years I only ever had 1 egg-bound hen, and I was easily able to help her pass it in the bathtub in about 30 minutes. So these "absorbable" or "digestible" food sources of calcium are by far the best way to increase your bird's calcium blood levels.
If you must use a calcium supplement or "pill" instead of using an absorbable calcium diet, make sure you are giving them a CALCIUM OROTATE supplement. I capitalized the type of calcium to use because #1 it's not the common type of calcium supplement you see in most stores, and #2 because it is the by far the most absorbable supplement form of calcium available. In fact if you do your research, calcium carbonate, which is the most common type of calcium supplement available, as well as any other type of calcium supplement except calcium orotate, are basically just urinated out at the amount of 50%+ to 80%+. And the other 20%-50% that isn't just passed from the body in the urine? It's not necessarily absorbed in a good way, unfortunately. This goes for all animals, birds, and reptiles (reptiles have a very serious issue with this calcium supplement thing), where the bit of calcium supplement that isn't passed in the urine actually forms calcium placque in the arteries, including the coronary arteries, causing heart disease! If the calcium is taken in the form of dietary calcium (from food) or as a calcium orotate supplement, most of the calcium is absorbed into the body, allowing the blood calcium levels to rise, this calcium level available for the body to use as needed, and there is little to no free calcium available to form calcium placque in the arteries, to bind with free oxalate and form kidney stones, or to simply be urinated out.
So the bottom line for increasing the amount of usable calcium in you or your bird's body and lowering or completely eliminating free calcium that is not usable by the body and only causes problems such as kidney stones and coronary artery disease, is to increase you or your bird's intake of foods high in absorbable calcium, as I listed above in order of calcium content from high to low, and by avoiding calcium supplements. If you must take calcium supplements or give them to your bird, use only calcium orotate supplements, as they contain by far the highest amount of absorbable calcium and allow the lowest amount of free calcium in the body, which may either cause serious health issues or just be wasted in the urine/fecal matter.
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