White rice

[CAGLulu]

Hey all..

I do not have any brown rice so is it okay I give Lulu some white rice? Or else I will do her some sweet potato mash with quinoa, pearled barley and hulled millet eventhough she got that yesterday


Lulu needs to gain on some weight from what my eyes can tell me. She looks too thin and I can feel her bone on her chest. She always have food available she can eat from; fruits, veggies and pellets. It is very rarely I give her nuts. She gets sunflower seeds when we do training. Any advice on how I can get her to gain some weight? I will give her more nuts, but is there anything else I can do? She is very active and is out of her cage everyday for about 10 hours.

 

[roxynoodle]

White rice isn't dangerous for birds; it's just that brown rice is more nutritious (for us, too).

Has Lulu had a vet check to determine if she truly is underweight or why?

Adding maybe 3 Nutriberries a day to her pellets might also help with weight. So might some nutritious nuts like walnuts, hazelnuts or almonds. Merlin loves both Nutriberries and nuts.

 

[CAGLulu]

Thanks. Now I can give it to her without I have to worry. Definitely brown rice is more nutritious and that is also what I usually give her

Yes, she had a vet check recently but that was because of her feather mites. The vet did not comment on her weight. She is going again in two weeks so I will ask him there.

I will begin to give her some more nuts so she can get fat

 

[roxynoodle]

Did the vet weigh her when you went in? Usually they do. I'm sure if he was concerned about it he would have mentioned it.

 

[CAGLulu]

No he did not weigh her I'm also pretty sure he would have if he saw she was underweight. He is very very good and he just loves parrots. However, I think she is a bit underweight compared to some other African Greys

 

[oled]

A weight check is more or less only relevant if the vet has done it before on the same perrot do to big spreath in size. But a good vet can feel and se if it looks normal/good. So you should, about 1 time per week check the weight youreself for being able to díscover a problem asap

 

[roxynoodle]

Hmm, my vet always weighs the bird and keeps it in their records. I do have weight records on Merlin going back to 93 from her previous owner. She has weighed from 448 grams to 498 grams if that helps you any.

 

[CAGLulu]

I've actually never weighed Lulu, so I don't know her weight. My guess would be approx. 427 grams - precise guess I know It will probably be a good idea if I weighed her asap

 

[Spiritbird]

It is a good thing to have a gm. scale in your home to keep records on birds wt.

 

[Pedro]

CAGLulu, why are you in such a rush for Lulu to put on weight, she is only approaching 14 months old. She is still young & hasn't filled out yet. She still has a lot of growing to do in the next 18 months until she is matured. That is why she looks on the thin side. But i bet when she is resting on your arm she doesn't feel light.

Personally i would just feed her the required food she should be eating & let her get on with growing into an adult. A good balanced diet for her species.

 

[Wulfgeist]

This is awesome because I was recently wondering the same thing. I'm sort of lazy and stupid in the cooking department so I have the boil in bags of rice..as long as the rice cooked it's still ok to give the birds some?

 

[roxynoodle]

Hey, last night I gave mine some Uncle Ben's long grain wild and brown rice that comes precooked in a bag that goes into the microwave for 1.5 minutes, lol! Admittedly it probably has some salt in it, but it's not like they eat it everyday. They eat it when I eat it, which is like once a week or so. Well, they will get some tonight because I have leftovers. But, sometimes that is all I eat for dinner due to my digestive disease.

If you are single it is hard to cook without eating the same thing all the time, or doing a lot of portioning and freezing.