chris-md
Well-known member
- Feb 6, 2010
- 4,359
- 2,143
- Parrots
- Parker - male Eclectus
Aphrodite - red throated conure (RIP)
The eclectus diet; much talked-about, always poorly understood. This post will have three objectives:
How is the Eclectus diet different from other companion parrots:
This much is well-known: Eclectus digestive system is very sensitive, and this means they have special dietary requirements. Where most parrots in aviculture are some variation of granivores (“seed eaters”), in the wild eclectus are “generalist frugivores”. By frugivores, that tindicates their primary food source is fruits. The "Generalist" modifier tempers this requirement slightly, indicating that while most of their diet is primarily fruits, they incorporate numerous other food sources in their diet, such as flowers, seeds, and buds.
This is an important takeaway: ekkies are NOT evolved to be on seed-heavy diets!
The rules: do's and don’ts in the eclectus diet:
Lets start with what NOT to do:
Because they're digestive system is very sensitive ECLECTUS SHOULD NOT BE FED ENRICHED FOOD. Food containing added vitamins and minerals, or artificial dyes, or fruits preserved in sulfur dioxide should not be fed to eclectus. Part of what makes them unique is that their physiology makes them sensitive to these additives, and can trigger toe tapping and wing flipping.
Eclectus do have a need for higher vitamin A/beta carotene in their diet. A good source of this is any fruit/vegetable red or orange in color: carrots, sweet potatoes, and assorted color bell peppers are often used for this purpose.
There is also belief that they require higher fiber content…more on this further in the document.
This means most pellet brands (Zupreem, Pretty Bird, Roudybush, Harrison’s, etc) should not be fed to eclectus. You will hear myriad stories online about how “my ekkie has been on pellets for years and is fine”…this is true, some birds do well on them. However, pellets have been implicated in so many eclectus health problems – muscle spasms in the legs (toe tapping) and wings (wing flipping) most notably - that your default should be NOT to include them in your birds diet. Unenriched pellets, such as TOPs, are perfectly ok to serve.
This also means you need to be careful what human food you provide your parrots. Read labels, and be sure to only feed your bird food products that are free of added vitamins and minerals.
What DO you feed your eclectus?
Eclectus need to be fed a diet primarily of fresh fruit, vegetables, and legumes (with heavy emphasis on pulses such as chickpeas, lentils, and mung beans). Sprouts are a perfect addition to the diet as well. In essence, their diet can be described as "FRESH VARIETY".
There are many ways to feed a diversity of fresh goods. Many accomplish this by way of the use of chop, a mixture of a wide variety of vegetables, fruits, and grains, that have been run through a food processor to ensure all food are small enough to avoid being able to pick out individual preferred bits of food – an excellent preparation technique for picky eaters.
You can find myriad examples of chop recipes here:
(1) Chop Recipes Resource Thread
WHY does this make them unique?
We’ve mentioned the eclectus digestive system is special and sensitive. What makes it so special and sensitive, you ask? Well, unusually, that’s the challenge: we don’t really know. We can universally agree they are adapted to eating primarily fruits, which will come with its own set of adaptive . But that’s where the agreement ends. To that end, there are two primary schools of thought:
Common ethos: what many have accepted as true is that eclectus have longer digestive systems. Longer digestive systems provide increased surface area to extract nutrients from nutrient-poor foods. This creates a situation where the birds digestive system extracts too many vitamins from nutrient dense food, which can be detrimental to the birds health. This elongated system has further implications, suggesting that with a longer system, there is a higher fiber requirement for the diet.
*Updated thinking: This concept of the elongated digestive system is being challenged in certain corners of the avicultural community – some believe it to be a red herring. Little is written specifically about the eclectus digestive system, and what exists in academic literature makes no mention whatsoever of elongated digestive system. Instead, what is spoken about is primarily how specifically the upper digestive system is structured (i.e. large crop, wide esophagus, elastic proventriculus, to name a few), with emphasis on the fact that the features of this upper digestive system are clearly adaptations for a frugivorous diet – with some left over granivorous tendencies. As frugivores, they are adapted to rapid digestion, which is actually antithetical to the concept of having a longer digestive system, which would be an adaptation for slower digestion.
This updated thinking essentially says “being Frugivores really is what makes them unusual: most parrot species in captivity are primarily granivorous, we understand them better. By default we, perhaps inadvertently out of habit and convenience, force granivory onto a species that isn’t adapted for that, and its no wonder we have problems”
The primary challenge to this new way of thinking – this “frugivorous adaptive digestive system” - cannot, as yet, explain WHY enriched foods often create problems.
The challenge to the “elongated system” is the established concept of gut plasticity: it is a well-documented phenomenon where the length of the digestive system is capable of changing with diet. A change in diet if sustained can, over the course of a couple weeks, cause a digestive system to lengthen or shorten according to digestive need. Therefore, one could posit that what we’ve assumed to be a “longer digestive system” is the result of feeding our ekkies a more granivorous diet in captivity. What we have observed is the effect of diet, rather than being an established trait.
A note on fruit
The there is one notable issue with fruit: HORMONES! In eclectus we are always trying to avoid unnecessary hormonal behavior, and one of the major hormone triggers for our companion eclectus is excess sugar in the diet, a huge source of that coming from naturally occurring fructose in fruits. Feeding too many fruits can trigger hormonal behavior.
What does this mean for you and for the diet
By and large, not much! Whether you subscribe to the “longer digestive tract” or the “its frugivory, stupid” way of thinking, either way you need to be feeding fresh food for your eclectus’ primary diet. The WHY is more an academic discussion. That said, there COULD be minor implications:
Here's the bottom line: whether you subscribe to the more traditional school of thought or the newer viewpoint, the major difference will be your perspective on the importance of fruit in the diet.
Tradition says “veggies and grain heavy, with minimized fruit”.
New thinking says “veggies and grains, maximizing fruit in the diet to the point just below hormonal behavior threshold, if that even exists for your bird”.
As you can see, either way, the diet will be similar to the point of near indistinction regardless of what you may believe about their physiology. The only difference is do you view fruits from the top down (minimize) or bottom up (maximize up to hormones). You're liekly to feed the same amount of fruit either way.
Either way, a diverse diet of fresh…EVERYTHING…will accomplish all goes with regards to proper eclectus nutrition.
*All claims of scientific note (i.e. eclectus physiology design/digestive adaptations, wild diet, etc) can be exemplified in the following scientific paper: Exploring The Wild Diet | birdhealth
- Explain the dos and don’ts of feeding your eclectus
- Relate it to wild eclectus feeding behavior
- Examine the discussion surrounding their physiology, and what makes them unique among parrot species.
How is the Eclectus diet different from other companion parrots:
This much is well-known: Eclectus digestive system is very sensitive, and this means they have special dietary requirements. Where most parrots in aviculture are some variation of granivores (“seed eaters”), in the wild eclectus are “generalist frugivores”. By frugivores, that tindicates their primary food source is fruits. The "Generalist" modifier tempers this requirement slightly, indicating that while most of their diet is primarily fruits, they incorporate numerous other food sources in their diet, such as flowers, seeds, and buds.
This is an important takeaway: ekkies are NOT evolved to be on seed-heavy diets!
The rules: do's and don’ts in the eclectus diet:
Lets start with what NOT to do:
Because they're digestive system is very sensitive ECLECTUS SHOULD NOT BE FED ENRICHED FOOD. Food containing added vitamins and minerals, or artificial dyes, or fruits preserved in sulfur dioxide should not be fed to eclectus. Part of what makes them unique is that their physiology makes them sensitive to these additives, and can trigger toe tapping and wing flipping.
Eclectus do have a need for higher vitamin A/beta carotene in their diet. A good source of this is any fruit/vegetable red or orange in color: carrots, sweet potatoes, and assorted color bell peppers are often used for this purpose.
There is also belief that they require higher fiber content…more on this further in the document.
This means most pellet brands (Zupreem, Pretty Bird, Roudybush, Harrison’s, etc) should not be fed to eclectus. You will hear myriad stories online about how “my ekkie has been on pellets for years and is fine”…this is true, some birds do well on them. However, pellets have been implicated in so many eclectus health problems – muscle spasms in the legs (toe tapping) and wings (wing flipping) most notably - that your default should be NOT to include them in your birds diet. Unenriched pellets, such as TOPs, are perfectly ok to serve.
This also means you need to be careful what human food you provide your parrots. Read labels, and be sure to only feed your bird food products that are free of added vitamins and minerals.
What DO you feed your eclectus?
Eclectus need to be fed a diet primarily of fresh fruit, vegetables, and legumes (with heavy emphasis on pulses such as chickpeas, lentils, and mung beans). Sprouts are a perfect addition to the diet as well. In essence, their diet can be described as "FRESH VARIETY".
There are many ways to feed a diversity of fresh goods. Many accomplish this by way of the use of chop, a mixture of a wide variety of vegetables, fruits, and grains, that have been run through a food processor to ensure all food are small enough to avoid being able to pick out individual preferred bits of food – an excellent preparation technique for picky eaters.
You can find myriad examples of chop recipes here:
(1) Chop Recipes Resource Thread
WHY does this make them unique?
We’ve mentioned the eclectus digestive system is special and sensitive. What makes it so special and sensitive, you ask? Well, unusually, that’s the challenge: we don’t really know. We can universally agree they are adapted to eating primarily fruits, which will come with its own set of adaptive . But that’s where the agreement ends. To that end, there are two primary schools of thought:
Common ethos: what many have accepted as true is that eclectus have longer digestive systems. Longer digestive systems provide increased surface area to extract nutrients from nutrient-poor foods. This creates a situation where the birds digestive system extracts too many vitamins from nutrient dense food, which can be detrimental to the birds health. This elongated system has further implications, suggesting that with a longer system, there is a higher fiber requirement for the diet.
*Updated thinking: This concept of the elongated digestive system is being challenged in certain corners of the avicultural community – some believe it to be a red herring. Little is written specifically about the eclectus digestive system, and what exists in academic literature makes no mention whatsoever of elongated digestive system. Instead, what is spoken about is primarily how specifically the upper digestive system is structured (i.e. large crop, wide esophagus, elastic proventriculus, to name a few), with emphasis on the fact that the features of this upper digestive system are clearly adaptations for a frugivorous diet – with some left over granivorous tendencies. As frugivores, they are adapted to rapid digestion, which is actually antithetical to the concept of having a longer digestive system, which would be an adaptation for slower digestion.
This updated thinking essentially says “being Frugivores really is what makes them unusual: most parrot species in captivity are primarily granivorous, we understand them better. By default we, perhaps inadvertently out of habit and convenience, force granivory onto a species that isn’t adapted for that, and its no wonder we have problems”
The primary challenge to this new way of thinking – this “frugivorous adaptive digestive system” - cannot, as yet, explain WHY enriched foods often create problems.
The challenge to the “elongated system” is the established concept of gut plasticity: it is a well-documented phenomenon where the length of the digestive system is capable of changing with diet. A change in diet if sustained can, over the course of a couple weeks, cause a digestive system to lengthen or shorten according to digestive need. Therefore, one could posit that what we’ve assumed to be a “longer digestive system” is the result of feeding our ekkies a more granivorous diet in captivity. What we have observed is the effect of diet, rather than being an established trait.
A note on fruit
The there is one notable issue with fruit: HORMONES! In eclectus we are always trying to avoid unnecessary hormonal behavior, and one of the major hormone triggers for our companion eclectus is excess sugar in the diet, a huge source of that coming from naturally occurring fructose in fruits. Feeding too many fruits can trigger hormonal behavior.
What does this mean for you and for the diet
By and large, not much! Whether you subscribe to the “longer digestive tract” or the “its frugivory, stupid” way of thinking, either way you need to be feeding fresh food for your eclectus’ primary diet. The WHY is more an academic discussion. That said, there COULD be minor implications:
- Some have claimed noticed that their eclectus does better when more fruit is in their diets
- As previously noted, it is a common refrain that eclectus need higher fiber content due to an elongated digestive system. The fact that they are adapted primarily to eating fruit pulp – well known to be a poor source of insoluble fiber - directly contradicts this believe in need for higher fiber. Ekkie digestion is physiologically designed to be quick; high fiber in a diet actually slows digestion, probably not a good thing. Perhaps there might be a need for increased soluble fiber – something fruits are rich in - compared to other species, but further academic review and clarification is required to make this distinction
Here's the bottom line: whether you subscribe to the more traditional school of thought or the newer viewpoint, the major difference will be your perspective on the importance of fruit in the diet.
Tradition says “veggies and grain heavy, with minimized fruit”.
New thinking says “veggies and grains, maximizing fruit in the diet to the point just below hormonal behavior threshold, if that even exists for your bird”.
As you can see, either way, the diet will be similar to the point of near indistinction regardless of what you may believe about their physiology. The only difference is do you view fruits from the top down (minimize) or bottom up (maximize up to hormones). You're liekly to feed the same amount of fruit either way.
Either way, a diverse diet of fresh…EVERYTHING…will accomplish all goes with regards to proper eclectus nutrition.
*All claims of scientific note (i.e. eclectus physiology design/digestive adaptations, wild diet, etc) can be exemplified in the following scientific paper: Exploring The Wild Diet | birdhealth
