my orange winged Amazon has warm feet and diarrea. any indication or suggestion… he’s eating o k ; recently started him on chop – dandelion grns, spinach,arugula, broccoli, carrots, swt potato, orange and red bell peppers. he does go out for a stroll in sun and shade – 85 – 90 degree days …2xs a day for 30 min.
Hi,
The temperature of the feet isn’t really a concern. For the droppings, first you need to determine does your Amazon have diarrhea or polyuria, excess water in the droppings. True diarrhea is rare in parrots, and generally a sign of serious illness. The droppings will have no discernable elements, and can have a bad odor. With excess water or liquid in the droppings, you will still see formed feces, white urates and then a lot of clear urine. It can make the entire dropping look watered down, but mainly you have a fairly normal dropping with a lot of liquid.
Changing the diet can definitely cause a change in droppings. And feeding more fresh foods than normal can cause this. Chop is just a trendy term for fresh greens, veggies & fruits, sometimes with a super grain or legume added. Chop is not a diet – it is a supplement. Unfortunately it is promoted as a diet by some internet “experts”. There is a concern about feeding a mostly soft diet to parrots because most parrot species have digestive systems that are intended to eat hard foods such as nuts and grains. Veterinarians and nutrition experts recommend feeding a diet that has been formulated based on science. There is no scientific basis to feeding “chop” as the main diet, and there is no way to know if it is nutritionally balanced. All produce begins to lose nutrients from the time it is harvested. In fact produce that is flash frozen in the field can have more nutrients than any you grow yourself, and certainly more than what is found in the average grocery store. The greens & veggies you mentioned are all packed with various nutrients – again the level can very – but should only be fed in small amounts of each, and combined consist of no more than 20% of the daily offerings. The rest of his diet should consist of a nutritionally balanced diet which would be pellets or a foraging pellet. Of the foods you listed, the dandelion greens are very likely to cause polyuria since they do act as a diuretic. Most of these foods can be very high in Vitamin A, which can cause toxicity if too much is consumed. I would cut back on offering so many sources of vitamin A at one time, and add some other veggies to the mix.
As for going outside, parrots do not tolerate heat as well as cold, especially indoor birds. A large temperature change can cause issues with a pet bird. Usually about 80 degrees is probably the hottest temperature to expose an indoor bird to. And even then, it should be in the shade. He may be getting too hot, and then consuming extra water, causing the loose droppings.
Of course if you are concerned that he is sick, you should take him to an Avian Vet. If he is acting normally and eating normally and the only concern is the loose droppings, try cutting out the chop for a week, as well as the trips outside, and see if his droppings go back to normal. If they do, then gradually introduce small amounts of fresh foods and keep him indoors until the weather isn’t so hot.
Thank you for asking Lafeber.
Brenda
