We have a 4 month old yellow sided conure. We have a container if mixed seed and separate containers of pellets as well that she has access to all day. As well, we have given a small amount of sprouted seed a couple of times a week and a bit of fresh fruit daily (a piece if apple or banana or strawberry ). Are we feeding her too much? She nibbles all day
Hi Sue,
Parrots are natural foragers and wild parrots spend much of their day foraging for food. As long as a bird’s caloric needs are met, it is highly unlikely that it will overeat. At her age, your conure is still learning what she can eat and trying out different foods. I would not feed her a loose seed mix. While there is nothing wrong with seeds, the seeds in most loose mixes is no longer fresh enough to contain many nutrients. Any added vitamins are lost when the bird hulls the seeds. So the bird will tend to keep eating more seeds in an effort to be satisfied. We do make foraging diets that contain fresh, hulled seeds combined with other nutritious ingredients. Our Nutri-Berries, Pellet-Berries & Avi-Cakes are nutritionally balanced the same as a pellet, but they are not ground up. Pelleted diets are fine, but they are actually ground seeds and grains with added supplements. Their uniform shape and size do not offer any natural foraging exercise. You can feed any of our foraging diets alone, combined, or along with pellets. With our foraging diets, your goal is for the bird to eat all of each berry or cake without wasting too much. This can be achieved by only offering a couple at a time, and then giving the bird more after she eats those. You may have to crumble the food at first until she figures out it is the same seeds she loves in a berry or cake. In the wild, when food is abundant, a parrot will eat a bite or two from a food and then discard the rest. This helps reseed the environment and feed ground dwelling creatures. So when you give a parrot too much food at one time, she will tend to waste a lot of food. It is important that she always have some food available to her, but you can still limit how much of each type to help reduce waste.
I would not give her any type of sprouts anymore. Most Vets have started to advise against it due to the high risk of illness from bacterial or fungal growth. While there are precautions many sprouters take to prevent bacteria or fungus, there is still a risk and it is not worth it when there are so many other nutritious foods out there.
Fruits and veggies are a good diet supplement, but should be fed in moderation – especially fruits. Any supplemental foods should be no more than 20% of the diet. The rest of the diet is the staple food – pellets and/or another nutritionally balanced food such as our foraging diets. I’ll provide our food guide which gives more details and suggestions on what you can feed along with the daily staple diet.
Thank you for asking Lafeber,
Brenda
