Ask Lafeber

feeding blue front

How many nutri berries per day as his main food do you suggest? I’ll also give him fruit and vegetables daily.
Thank you,

Hi Ernie,

A Blue Fronted Amazon may eat anywhere from 6 to 12 berries per day. It can vary based on your bird’s activity level and metabolism. When feeding Nutri-Berries, your goal is for him to eat most of each berry without wasting too much. Parrots seem to be very wasteful, but in the wild, this actually has a purpose. When food is abundant, the parrots will take a few choice bites and then discard the remainder – this helps to feed ground dwelling creatures and reseed the environment. Of course it is annoying with captive parrots. 🙂

If you start by giving him a lot of Nutri-Berries, he will likely select what part he wants and waste the rest. Once he is eating the Nutri-Berries well, you can reduce how many you give him at a time. When he has eaten those, he can have more. Many owners give a few in the morning, and the rest in the afternoon. Since he also eats fruits and veggies, he will have those to munch on if he runs out of the Nutri-Berries. Eventually you will be able to tell about how many he needs each day. And if he does drop some, you can put them back in the dish as long they didn’t get soiled.

Later you can work on foraging. We just hosted a webinar on this. Watch as Dr. Lamb’s Blue Front forages throughout her talk!

Thank you for Asking Lafeber,

Brenda