What do they feed parrots at home? Proper Diet for Budgerigars

2024 Author: Priscilla Miln | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-16 00:21

In order for a pet parrot to feel good, keep its bright rainbow plumage and please the owners with carefree chirping, it needs proper care and he althy nutrition. Experienced breeders try to diversify the diet to bring it closer to natural food. What to feed a parrot at home?

Essential nutritional grain mixtures, various treats for taming and rewarding, useful feed additives are selected in accordance with the needs of the pet. The most popular breeds among bird lovers are the budgerigar and the lovebird. Despite the similarities in content, their needs differ. Therefore, allowable diets should be considered separately.

What to feed a budgerigar

The basis of the diet is grain. For small birds, this is, first of all, all types of millet: red, white, yellow and black. Wheat and oats should make up to 30% of the daily requirement. In addition, seeds of canary grass, hemp and flax are needed. An adult he althy parrot should eat two teaspoonsgrains per day. Females during the breeding season and young animals eat a little more.

Before you put the grain mixture in the feeder, you should check it for debris, insects and unpleasant odors. Bulk grain must be washed and dried at room temperature before use. Ready-made food makes caring for a parrot much easier. Proven manufacturers offer organic processed grains, properly formulated blends, dehulled oats and wheat. When buying, you should carefully study the label where the composition of the mixture is written. Vitaminized and iodized foods, as well as foods with additives for feather brightness, should be used with caution, only during the molting period or as a therapeutic diet.

Sprouting helps to check the freshness of the feed. A pinch of grain is soaked in water for a day. Wrap in damp cotton cloth or gauze. A closed container with grains is left in a warm place. If sprouts appear in a day or two, then the grain is fresh. The bird can be safely fed with both proven grain and sprouts. They are better absorbed, rich in vitamins and amino acids, have a good effect on digestion. Sprouted food can be offered in small quantities each day.

Another type of soft food is porridge (without milk, butter, s alt and sugar) or just steamed grains. You can use buckwheat, oatmeal, corn porridge and brown rice. It is important to have a separate container for soft food and clean up leftovers in time.

A parrot bought in a store, and not from a breeder, is probably not accustomed to such a delicacy. New Productshould be introduced into the diet gradually, in small portions.

Juicy food

What can you feed a parrot besides food? Every day he should receive fresh food. Fruits, vegetables and herbs are an important source of vitamins, minerals and fiber.

What can I feed a parrot from vegetables:

• carrot;
• zucchini;
• melon;
• pumpkin;
• milk corn;
• beans;
• green peas.

What fruit parrots eat:

• apple;
• pear;
• banana;
• grapes;
• peach;
• apricot;
• seasonal berries.

In summer, fruits and berries are given fresh, in winter - steamed dried fruits and well-warmed frozen preparations.

What herbs can be added to the diet:

• dandelion;
• salad;
• spinach;
• radish tops;
• alfalfa;
• scalded nettle;
• clover;
• young oats;
• chicory;
• weed seeds, such as quinoa, in spikelets;
• home plants - Tradescantia, Chlorophytum, Kalanchoe.

Juicy food is offered in small portions in separate containers. To make the parrot more interesting, you can string pieces of fruits and vegetables on a skewer and hang them on the bars of the cage. Twigs of greenery are also better placed higher. So the bird will not stain the delicacy. Juicy food should not be left in the cage for more than two to three hours, especially in summer, as cut fruits and vegetables spoil quickly.

What are gastroliths

This is the fine gravel, sand or crushed shell rock needed to fill the goiter. Since birds do not have teeth, the process of grinding food takes place in the muscular stomach. The pebbles that the bird swallows are quickly erased and come out with the overcooked food. It is necessary to constantly fill the goiter with new ones. Therefore, the parrot needs to be poured daily into a separate feeder with mineral top dressing.

In addition to gastroliths, it may contain chalk, coal, bone meal and sulfur. Ready mixes are sold in pet stores. You can independently make such a mixture of calcined sand, chalk and eggshells.

As a source of easily digestible calcium, sepia, that is, cuttlefish shell, is very useful. Pecking crumbs of the shell from a large piece, the parrot can grind off the rapidly growing beak.

To care for the beak, use a special mineral stone or young tree branches. They are offered along with the bark and kidneys. Birch, cherry, linden and apple shoots are useful. Conifers, bird cherry, acacia, lilac, oak can cause poisoning. Best avoided.

Reward Treats

During the period of taming and training a parrot, small pieces of attractive food are needed. With their help, you can lure a bird into your arms or reward it for imitation of speech and various tricks. What can you hand feed a parrot?

Juicy pieces of fruit are perfect as a treat. You can buy special egg biscuits or biscuits with seeds, grains, dried fruits in the store. FROMthey have nothing in common with human pastries. They are safe for digestion in small amounts. If the parrot has received a nutritious treat, the amount of food can be reduced slightly.

In order to diversify everyday life and entertain a parrot, feed manufacturers offer treats on sticks that can be hung in a cage. It is important to understand that you cannot completely replace the daily diet with treats, even the most he althy ones. Do not get carried away and overfeed the bird from your hands. At home, it is difficult for a parrot to burn extra calories.

Dangerous Products

What can you not feed a budgerigar? First of all, human food should be avoided. S alty, sweet, sour, fatty and starchy treats are completely excluded. Birds have a very sensitive stomach, so even an excess of fat-containing seeds (sunflower, flax, etc.) can lead to serious upset.

Soft food should not be hot or cold.

Spicy and spicy vegetables and herbs should be avoided. These are onion, garlic, radish, radish, eggplant, celery, parsley, dill. Sour fruits can cause an upset, and such as mango, persimmon, avocado - the strongest poisoning.

Rules for keeping and feeding birds

In nature, birds find a very diverse food for themselves, they eat small portions throughout the day. Therefore, it is so important to monitor what parrots are fed at home. An unbalanced diet can lead to serious illnesses. Feeders and drinkers should be cleaned daily of yesterday's residues andfilled with grain mixture, pieces of succulent feed, gravel and water. Fasting more than five hours is dangerous for a parrot.

The tray in the cage is also regularly cleaned with an unscented detergent. Tropical birds are very susceptible to infections.

For the he alth of a parrot, not only the right diet is important, but also the right exercise. In the absence of movement and low activity, obesity and all the diseases associated with it are possible. It is necessary to keep the parrot in a fairly spacious cage with various equipment for acrobatic exercises.

A tame bird can be let out of its cage for flight and communication. At the same time, safety rules must be observed: close windows, doors, turn off the gas and heaters, remove poisonous substances, plants and other dangerous things from the room. Parrots are very inquisitive and can taste completely inappropriate things.

What do they feed parrots during molting? In the off-season, the parrot behaves restlessly and seems unhe althy, the plumage thins and fades. This is due to the change of pen and hormonal activity. During such a period, you should support the body with vitamins and increase the amount of succulent feed in the diet. Vitamin supplements should only be given on the advice of a veterinarian.

What do lovebird parrots eat

A large body weight determines a large energy expenditure. The lovebird eats 4 teaspoons of food per day. The main features of the diet are in the composition of the grain mixture and soft food rich in protein.

Owners should pay maximum attention to what they feed parrots of medium species, because the quality and life expectancy of pets depends on it. Grain mixture for lovebirds contains up to 50% wheat and oats, several types of sunflower seeds, nuts. Fat-containing ingredients should be no more than 15%. In addition, food of animal origin is recommended in small quantities: cottage cheese, boiled egg, milk.

There are no peculiarities in the use of succulent feed, treats and gastroliths in keeping lovebirds. The same foods and supplements are suitable for them as for budgerigars.