The Dangers of Poor Parrot Diet
The main cause of any number of parrot problems stems from poor nutrition. A poor diet can drastically reduce a parrot’s life span. Some of these birds can live to be over 60 years old. But a bad diet can force to live of pain and misery with health problems including liver disease, respiratory problems, feather and skin disorders and other issues.
Something that is often over looked by pet owners is the quality of the water you give them every day. Tap water is in most cases not the best choice. It’s probably not that good for you either. I always recommend using only filtered or bottled water. Make sure you keep the water bowl clean and change the water regularly.
For food, remember that a diet exclusively made up of seed is not the best for your parrot. In the wild, parrots eat whatever is available during any given season. This results in them getting a natural variety of foods in their diet. Parrots need a mixture of fresh leafy greens and fruits as well as seed.
Neither seed nor widely available pellet food has enough vitamin A for your bird. As a result, vitamin A deficiency has become quite common. To combat this you need to feed them plenty of leafy greens, green vegetables and fruits.
Pellet food has become very popular over the years. Undoubtedly that’s because of the claims made by the manufacturers about how easy it is to give your parrot a balanced diet. Just give them these nutritional pellets. Well, be a little skeptical. It just isn’t that easy. In fact there is some evidence that suggests a long term diet of only pellet food can cause other problems.
The cooked food based diet is a particularly good way to go. Most people will say that it sounds like a lot of work – that’s because it is. The diet consists of a cooked mixture of beans, brown or whole-grain rice, quinoa, amaranth, couscous and other grains. Add some whole-grain pasta, seeds, nuts and pellets along with fruits, dried vegetables and herbs and you have a really good nutritional base.
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