If your bird has only ever eaten seed diet, he or she may be reluctant to try new foods. Older parrots may view new food items with caution or even fear if it suddenly appears in their cage.
In the wild, parrots learn what to eat from other members of their flock. Be patient and persistent. We can encourage our companion parrots to try new foods by showing them that we like it too! Try making a wet mash of parrot pellets and sprinkling it with seed, spreading food items out on a plate or mirror on a table or play stand. Try lightly steaming vegetables or cooking sweet potato or corn to increase palatability at first.
Do not underestimate your small parrot's ability to try new things. They are inquisitive, intelligent and great foragers. That is why parrots are found on almost every continent! What is foraging and why is it important? Foraging is the process of searching for, obtaining and processing food. It takes a lot of time, hard work and brain power to find food out in the bush or rainforest. Lack of foraging opportunities have been linked to the development of behaviours such as feather picking and screaming.
Companion parrots that are provided with an endless supply of food are prone to obesity, fatty tumours, liver and heart disease. Small parrots can forage on grasses and native foliage and even vegetables pegged on to the side of the cage or natural branches which serve as perches.
Providing environmental enrichment opportunities every day for your bird, inside and outside of their cage is important to keep your bird active and healthy. Do I need to give my bird vitamins?
If your bird is eating a formulated parrot diet and a variety of vegetables you do not need to give your bird extra supplements or vitamins. If your bird does not have access to direct sunlight, is only eating seed or is egg laying, you may need to give your bird vitamin and mineral supplements. It is important to speak to your vet to decide or the correct supplement for your bird and how long you should use it.
In most cases, providing a balanced diet and allowing your bird access to sunshine are better ways to ensure they are healthy. How should I house my bird? Your bird is special. The unique ability to fly, sets your bird apart from other animals. There has been a trend to allow companion parrots to be free flighted keep their flight ability by not clipping their wing feathers.
How you house your companion parrot depends entirely on how you wish to interact with your parrot and whether you are prepared to make it an indoor pet. Parrots also need access to a safe outside area to allow adequate exposure to sunlight. This could be as simple as taking your bird outdoors with you in a smaller cage or on a flight harness or providing them with a large outdoor aviary.
Most companion parrots will relish flight opportunities indoors and can be trained to stay on dedicated play stands, perches or stations while out of their cage spending time with you.
Don't leave it in the cage for too long as it will quickly grow a lot of bacteria and spoil. There are some who argue budgies do not need grit as they take the husks off their seeds. While this is true, they do actually still need grit. Here is why:. Grit is a name given to a lot of very small, sharp stones that we feed to birds.
It contains calcium that helps to strengthen the bones and stimulates growth, but it has another, more important function that has to do with a budgerigar's digestive system. A budgie has two stomachs. A first stomach adds digestive fluids to help soften the dehusked seeds.
After this, the food is transported to a muscular stomach that grinds everything with the help of the grit to allow the nutrients to be taken in by the body. Since eventually the grit is ground into powder, new grit is frequently needed. Grit made from oystershells is the most nutritious. A budgie's beak never stops growing.
Eventually, the beak becomes very pointy and long, making it impossible for the bird to eat. It also starts to stab the bird in the chest! Of course, you can imagine that this would hurt. A bird's beak needs to be maintained. This is why a bird needs a mineral block or a cuttlefish bone.
However, cuttlefish bone is made from the skeleton of a squid and is high in salt. Therefore, a mineral block would be preferable. The extra benefit of offering a mineral block is that you're providing the bird with a great source of calcium, resulting in stronger bones and stronger eggs. It also helps prevent a breeding bird from getting eggbound. Like all living beings, budgies need water.
Replace the water at least once a day and have it always available to the birds. It shouldn't be ice cold or hot. Soda water is not good. Water out of bottles is the healthiest. Millet is a veritable delight to any budgie's tastebuds.
Almost without exception, budgies are extremely fond of this treat, and it's the ultimate assistant when trying to tame a new bird. It's also easy to digest! Thus millet is also often used to teach a young budgie to eat seeds or to encourage a sick budgie to eat a bit. Millet is high in fats and should only be offered once a week, at a quantity of half a string per bird. While millet is no replacement for a good seed mixture, it is to be preferred over candy sticks for birds.
These are the seeds glued together with honey to form a long stick. Almost every store has these treats on offer; they're yummy and very popular. Budgies love them—naturally, since they taste very sweet! However, there is a lot of sugar in candy sticks , so don't offer them too often.
They should be more of an exception rather than a frequent snack. Besides causing diabetes in budgies yes, they can get diabetes , too much sugar can cause obesity and infections in the crop. Tea might be an unexpected addition to this list. Even for budgies, tea is healthy. Of course, it shouldn't be boiling hot, and you shouldn't add honey or sugar to it, but plain, diluted tea is very healthy and can even be used to support a sick budgie.
Make the tea as normal, then add the same amount of water again, stir and let it cool down before offering. When you offer tea, always also offer fresh water. Note: If your budgie is sick, take it to the doctor. Giving it tea should not be the only treatment! Of course, there is much more a budgie could eat. To list it all would be impossible. Therefore, we'll end this chapter with a list of some examples: bread crumbs, dry toast, a little bit of dry boiled rice or macaroni, a few drops of yoghurt, a small bit of cheese, etc.
There are some things that a budgie really cannot eat, ever. Either it's really unhealthy or hard to digest, or it's just plain poison! Although sometimes it can be very tempting, it's best not to allow your budgie to eat food that's on your plate. People food tends to be very bad for the tiny kidneys of a budgerigar, and it's often simply poisonous.
Avoid salt bad for kidneys and sugar causes infections, obesity and a whole host of problems. If you only have one budgie, buy smaller bags to ensure the seeds are still fresh when you offer them to the bird. The nutrients are at their peak, and there's a smaller chance of bacteria or funghi being in it.
A normal budgie needs about two overflowing tablespoons of seeds per day. If you have multiple budgies, always have some extra bags ready. How easy is it to look after a Budgie? Budgies are a beginner maintenance pet. Hand tamed Budgies have been handled and tamed by humans from a very early age, making then accustomed to frequent handling, cages and many noises that occur in everyday life.
Open top cages with perching areas are ideal for hand raised birds as they provide more freedom and interaction with their family. At night the cage should be covered with a sheet or cage cover to prevent drafts and reduce visual stress.
Budgies are predominantly a seed eating species so their captive diet should consist of a mix of budgie crumbles and seed. An appropriate seed would be a budgie mix, which should contain a variety of seeds such as french white millet, hulled oats, pannicum, and Japanese millet.
Grit assists with digestion so small amounts should be added to their daily seed. Seed lacks important vitamins and minerals so their daily diet should be supplemented with small portions of fresh fruit and vegetables such as apple, carrot, beans, peas, corn, broccoli and spinach. Never feed Budgies lettuce or avocado, and always remove the seeds from apples.
Fruit and vegetables should not be left for prolonged periods of time as they will easily spoil and this can lead to illness from the bacteria and yeasts that grow on spoilt produce. Vitamin supplements such as Soluvite D or Multivet can be added to your Budgies water two or three times a week. Calcium and Iodine can be provided through cuttlebone and iodine bells. Fresh water should always be available and should be changed on a daily basis.
Worming should be repeated every three months with a broadspectrum bird wormer. Enrichment is all about enhancing the quality of life for your Budgie and generally relates back to activities they would usually perform in the wild.
0コメント