Mary Allen
Diet is critical to the long-term health of parakeets and parrots. Only well-fed birds reproduce. The question also arises as to whether pellets are suitable feedstuffs.
Parrots live in very different habitats. Their diet is correspondingly varied. In addition, there are numerous genera and species, from lorikeets to macaws. While macaws tap into nuts as food with their massive and strong beaks, lorikeets with their fine beaks have specialized in flower pollen and nectar. Such classifications, although correct, can also pose a risk when feeding parakeets and parrots in captivity. Although the free life of various parrot species is increasingly being studied, even today only fragmentary information is known about their natural diet. Travelers and explorers have seen macaws munching on nuts in South America and lorikeets in Australia. An opinion about the diet is quickly formed, and feeding under human care is correspondingly one-sided.
Not only lories are interested in flowers and their contents, but almost all parrots. In February in the Serengeti in East Africa, peaches fly into blooming acacia treetops and nestle on the white blossoms. Maybe they take in nectar, possibly pollen, or they even find insects in it and nibble on the buds and leaves. Parakeets and parrots are generally happy about flowers, whether from elderberry, dandelion, or hibiscus. Although macaws will crack various types of nuts, they will also ingest fruit, often in a semi-ripe state.
Seeds Tailored to Needs
In central African Gabon, gray parrots strut around early in the morning on the open, sandy ground in La Lopé National Park and nibble on grasses, in the canopy layer of the South American rainforest Amazons bite into bromeliads. What all parrots seem to have in common is that they do not spurn animal food, whether insects in rotten wood or insect larvae in nuts or fruit. A number of species in the aviaries enthusiastically attack the mealworms that are served to them. Man cannot follow the flying parrots and does not know conclusively what they eat.
For more than 100 years, parrots have been fed all kinds of seeds. While this used to be primarily a grain feed consisting of sunflower seeds, in recent decades the feed industry has diversified its offering and tailored it to certain genera. There are now seed mixes for macaws, African Grays, and Eclectus Parrots that are rich in fatty seeds such as sunflower seeds. The members of these genera have an increased energy requirement.
Amazons, on the other hand, become fat if they get too many sunflower seeds. That is why their grain mix consists of leaner seeds. But already with the cockatoos, it becomes difficult. Cockatoo food is usually offered, but there is a big difference between keeping cockatoos from the Australian savannah region or those from the Cape York Peninsula of Australia, New Guinea, and the Indonesian islands. While the savanna dwellers should definitely get a lean seed mix with practically no sunflower seeds, those from the tropical rain forest need feed with increased energy requirements. Australian parakeet keepers will find appropriate ones
Mixtures, but those who care for the parakeets of Latin America have to improvise.
Go the Middle Way
Because the range of grains does not seem to be tailored to the needs of parrots, companies and veterinarians recommend pellets. What is better now? Pelleted feed is pelleted feed made from various ground grain, seed, and nut varieties that are mixed with nutritional supplements. Extrudates look like pellets but are made differently. The ingredients are pulverized and baked into colorful chunks at high temperatures. Vitamins and minerals are then added back.
If you give too much grain food, you run the risk that parrots will only ever pick out what they like and thus eat an unbalanced diet. In the case of pellets and extrudates, they consume comprehensive nutritional components. Veterinarians emphasize that this ensures that the parrot is adequately supplied with vitamins and calcium. Even with pellets and extrudates, the range of mixtures for individual species is hardly larger than in the conventional feed trade.
In discussions about which is better, comparisons are usually only made between grains and pellets. Grains are doing worse and worse when it comes to vitamin and calcium supply. No one just gives their fosterlings grain feed, but also provides them with natural fruits, vegetables, and herbs every day. Animals fed in this way do receive a wide range of food, which comes close to that of the pellets and with which parrots can grow very old. Feeding parakeets and parrots only pellets would not be correct, even if manufacturers often fatally describe their products as a complete food. Parrots are wild animals and require other stimulation than just food pellets. You must be able to gnaw on fruits and vegetables.
As is so often the case, the owner and breeder are not wrong when it comes to feeding parrots if they take the middle path. Relying solely on pellets is one-sided, to demonize them would be to throw the baby out with the bathwater. Grains, fruits, vegetables, herbs, and pellets are a versatile diet. Everything should never be given at the same time. Feeding twice a day, each with small portions corresponds to the natural daily routine of the parrots. For example, they can be given grains and fruit in the morning and pellets and vegetables in the evening.
Changes throughout the year are good. Grains don’t always have to be fed dry. When they have germinated, they develop vitamin E in particular, which has a breeding-stimulating effect. The feed should vary, just as the supply in nature is varied. Parrots in the rainforest and savanna often prepare for the breeding season during the rainy season. Germ food and more fruits and vegetables simulate the end of the rainy season, even if young soon fly out in the rainforest.