TheTameParrot.com - Say “BYE” To Your Parrot Problems

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I recently got a question about bird diets and what they can/should eat.

This question came from a Macaw owner, who read that you never give your birds “human snacks” suck as potato chips, French fries, or other highly salted foods. They were told that salt is extremely toxic to birds and could kill them. Was that true?

Well, my first thought was no, because if it were true I would have a whole lot of dead birds lying around our aviary. We always share our snacks with them, including salty snacks. I’m not talking about dumping a sack of chips into their food dish…just an occasional chip or two.

I thought about it some more……if salt kills birds how do sea birds that live around oceans survive? Obviously someone is wrong here.

And nearly every animal on earth needs salt! Why would such a vital mineral be highly toxic to birds?

I took a careful look at the formulated food products available for birds, and sure enough, right there in the ingredients is Natural Trace Mineral Salt and Sodium Selenite. Sodium Selenite is added to many poulty foods to promote growth and prevent selenium deficiency disease. But both of these salts are added to Harrison’s food diet, and this (it seems) is the de-facto diet to feed recommended by many bird enthusiasts.

So ok….salt is good, right?

SALT GLANDS

Sea birds have evolved with a digestive system that combines their kidneys, GI tract, and special salt glands to regulate the amount of salt in their body. Their system is designed to maintain a total body fluid homeostasis, which allows them to live off the high sea salt diet native to their environment. Unfortunately, this is not the case with most tropical birds. Their system is dependant on their kidneys to remove any excess salt in their system. Too much salt will also increase the urination, resulting in hydration problems.

Well hey! That’s the same problem humans have, isn’t it? If you eat too much salty foods, your body craves for fluids, and your urination increase dramatically! But salt doesn’t kill humans….?

The problem lies with the birds kidneys, and their inability to produce hypertonic urine (urine with lots of sodium). In other words, they have more difficulty removing high amounts of salt, unlike Sea Birds which accomplish this with their salt glands. Therefore, too much salt will quickly dehydrate a bird.

So OK, am I now saying salt is bad? No!

Any time you eat a diet high in salt or sugar, you are going to have health problems. The same goes for birds! Too much will cause health issues, as I just discussed…..but not enough salt will cause a number of deficiencies also! A diet with little sodium will result in loss of weight, iodine deficiencies, and (for breeders) lower egg production and a higher loss in egg size and growth. There are also a number of skin diseases traced to salt deficiencies.

The problems begin when you start feeding diets with excessive amounts of salt! But what is “excessive”. Unfortunately, the folks sounding the warning bell are using terribly unrealistic diets. They point to work done in Illinois and Maryland, where studies were done on birds being fed diets containing 4% salt! Well Holy Cow! What do you expect from that sort of diet!!!

So the warnings went out…bird lovers heard the sirens and assumed that too much salt means “all salt” and they cut back on loads of food items. Bread? Well of course…we use salt to make bread. So now all bread products are bad. Processed food? Yup, more salt…gotta stop giving my birds that too!

RELAX

You can feed your bird salty items without worrying about them dropping dead in their cage. Just keep in mind that heavily salted items must be given only occasionally.

If you gave your bird 3-4 potato chips, the salt content he is receiving is equivalent to a human eating 2 teaspoons of salt. Obviously any more then that would begin to have some serious dehydration problems. But that small amount isn’t going to hurt your bird.

It’s like I preach over and over…birds have the exact same nutritional requirements as humans do. You obviously are not going to eat 4-5 bags of potato chips or fatty snacks…but a small bowl is just fine. Therefore, 2-3 snack chips or crackers will not cause your bird problems either. And they will enjoy their occasional treat!

Use your common sense! Quit listening to these doomsday scientists who run test designed to find something wrong with any product. Once you look at the actual test results, and get past the doomsday news flashes, you will relax and give your birds their snacks.

I know that if I wanted to start a birdy-riot in my aviary, the sure way to do it would be to stop putting salt on their popcorn!

I’ve been into birds for a long time. So it came as a very pleasant surprise to me when I came across a reference of the National Bird Day celebration coming up on January 5^th. What a cool idea! What better way to show and educate people on how to care for their birds, and become aware of the different types of pets available and products that are sold.

Wow, what a disappointment! This thing is the complete opposite. This whole thing is being coordinated by the API and AWC, both of which are PETA wanna-be’s trying to end the entire bird pet trade! By carefully disguising this celebration as some sort of education packed date, it’s nothing but a recruitment drive to get members to join their group.

WHO ARE THESE GUYS?

The Animal Protection Institute (API), and the Avian Welfare Coalition (AWC) have only one agenda. Their goal is to completely stop the breeding and sale of pet birds, and thereby preventing you from owning one. They are totally against the sale, trade, or use of birds as pets.

To accomplish this, they hide behind the arguments that pet stores abuse birds and do not know how to care for them. They point out mass bird farms designed to breed birds for the purpose of pet store chains. They point out the poor conditions these birds live in.

But while they cast out this huge net, they are also punishing bird breeders who love their hobby and their birds. They also penalize the pet owner, accusing them of being barbarians, for the “displacement and suffering of captive birds” by keeping them in cages throughout their lives, and “not contributing to the viable preservation of the species”.

They are labeling me, a bird breeder, and everyone like me as evil! This is nothing but nonsense!

THE FACTS

I think that the National Bird Day needs to be taken away from these activists. For starters, there already is a “Bird Day” celebration that has been held every year since 1894, which happens every May 4^th. But since this day was designed to “recognize, appreciate, and enjoy birds”, it does not fit into their militant agenda. Therefore, they set January 5^th for their day of protest.

I think it’s very important that you, the bird hobbyist, the bird owner, the bird breeder, and BIRD LOVER need to also get your voice heard.

How many endangered species of birds have been brought back from near-extinction due to the efforts of bird breeders? How many birds have been saved by the efforts of bird lovers who oversee even the wild bird population?

Is it fair to you, the bird owner, to be lumped in with a very small group of irresponsible bird breeders and subsequently be punished by having your bird taken away from you? That is, after all, the goal of these two groups.

Therefore, everyone needs to join Sapphyre and I in celebrating National Bird Day on January 5^th….but for the RIGHT reasons, by educate people about pet birds and how to care for them.

We certainly do not condone the way some breeders raise their birds. But to allow these two groups to pass laws similar to those that were passed in California, which virtually prevents the breeding of birds altogether, is simply wrong. We need to speak up and use our influence to change the agenda of these two groups. Or at the very least, let people know these groups do NOT speak for the vast majority of bird owners in this country.

You don’t solve the problem by destroying an entire pet trade! Do you seriously think that will stop the abuse? Has any of the thousands of laws pass in this country prevented the abuse of dogs and cats? Wouldn’t taking all of this time, money, and energy and using it to educate bird owners be a better way to go?

So go ahead and celebrate National Bird day…but do it for the right reasons. If bird owners do not take a stand now, you will certainly pay for it in the future.

I had a good laugh this morning reading these parrot jokes.

GUARD PARROT

A postal carrier is working on a new beat. He comes to a garden gate marked BEWARE OF THE PARROT! He looks down the garden and, sure enough, there’s a parrot sitting on its perch. He has a little chuckle to himself at the sign and the parrot there on its perch. The mailman opens the gate and walks into the garden. He gets as far as the parrot’s perch, when suddenly, it calls out: “REX, ATTACK!”

MAGICIAN AND THE PARROT

There was once a magician on a cruise ship who performed mainly sleight of hand tricks. He had a regular spot on the ship’s cabaret evening entertainment. He was actually quite a good magician, but his routines were regularly ruined by the onboard parrot who would fly around squawking out and giving away his secrets like:

“IT’S UP HIS SLEEVE, IT’S UP HIS SLEEVE!”or

“IT’S IN HIS POCKET, IT’S IN HIS POCKET!”or

“IT’S IN HIS MOUTH, IT’S IN HIS MOUTH!”

The magician was getting pretty sick of this and threatened to kill the parrot if it ruined his act one more time. That evening right at the climax of his act, just as he was about to disappear in a puff of smoke, the ship hit an iceberg and sank in seconds.

Amazingly, the magician and the parrot were the only two survivors. The magician was lying on a piece of driftwood in a daze. As he opened his eyes he could see the parrot staring at him out of its beady little eye.

The parrot sat there for hours just staring at him and eventually said, “OK, I give up, what did you do with the ship?”

There are many more good ones. Head over to Sunday Morning Pet Humor

One of the most unique parrots we have bred was the Eclectus. These are very gentle and quiet birds that are rapidly becoming popular by pet owners. But they are not the easiest birds to breed, making them in low supply, and therefore driving up the cost to well over $1000.

Eclectus are very unique parrots, because they are sexually dimorphic, which means there is a very big difference between male and female, making it extremely easy to identify them. Male Eclectus are green, while females are predominately red and blue.

It was during the late 1880’s that scientist discovered that the green Eclectus were the males and the Red Eclectus were the females and that applied in each of the Eclectus species. This made sexing the chicks easy for breeders since there is no doubt by the color of the pin feathers as to what sex the baby was, so this was a financial savings on DNA testing on all the chicks.

BACKGROUND

There are 16 documented species of the Eclectus, however only 4 are generally available in the United States and Europe. These are the Solomin Island, Red Sided, Vosmaeri, and Grand. The Eclectus is a medium sized parrot. Solomon Island’s are the smallest, being 12”-13” long. Red-Sided Eclectus are the biggest at 16”-17”.

Eclectus are a bird native to New Guinea , the Solomon Islands, and southwards to Australia. In the wild, they are very good fliers, and spend much of their time flying over the jungle canopy.

As pets they are very gentle and playful. While they have a loud scream they are normally very quiet. They are excellent talkers, being rated in the top three of the parrots. From our experience, the males have always been the best talkers, and the most friendly and sociable of the sexes.

They are fairly difficult to breed. Breeders that start out as pets have a difficult time learning to parent and are the most difficult to breed. Wild Eclectus parrots seem to do better.

The female will generally lay 2 eggs and only she will incubate them, coming out of the breeder box twice a day to be fed by the male. When the chicks are a bit older she will come out and feed herself. The chicks are weaned by the age of 16 weeks.

In captivity, Eclectus parrots do not require a large cage, as they tend to not fly much. Many breeders who are offered large cages simply walk around or stay on their perches. The female spends most of her time in her breeding box. As pets, they enjoy spending their time on their cage, or on T-stands. They enjoy being petted and cuddled, but don’t usually get involved in active play with their owners.

Therefore, they will do great in a medium sized parrot case of 30×24x50. They are active chewers, and will quickly destroy their perches. So be sure they have extra wood toys to chew on, or invest in some good Manzanita perches. These are a very hard, dense wood that is difficult for birds to destroy.

DIET

Eclectus have a few unusual dietary needs. They must have a diet with a low fat content (adults only) due to their longer digestive tract. They are also susceptible to having low vitamin deficiencies, such as A, E, and D. Too much cholesterol will quickly develop into liver problems and a host of other blood related issues.

Therefore, they must have a very well balanced diet. It is important for an Eclectus owner to understand these health issues, and be able to identify the signs of potential problems. The very best method is to have your bird checked annually by an experienced avian vet, who will do a CBC blood test. Otherwise, you must learn to watch for feather problems, especially discoloration and blackening of the tops of the feathers. Also monitor them for fatigue and signs of diseases that are brought on from immune system problems.

There are some special pellet diets on the market designed for Eclectus parrots that contain a very low oil and fat content. When we bred them, we used just a standard pellet (such as Zupreem or Kaytee) and monitored their other food intake. They must be given extra vegi’s loaded with Vitamin A and E. Some research indicated they do not handle vitamin mixes, but I am not really convinced by this research to the point of abandoning them. We have taken in Eclectus birds with obvious deficiencies, and the vitamins brought them back just fine.

As a pet, the Eclectus is an excellent choice for a large parrot. They are intelligent, and known to just sit quietly and observe what is happening around the room. They are friendly and affectionate, great talkers, and will generally stay on their cage or stand. If you are planning to get one as a pet, it is recommended that you choose a male over the female, as they tend to be more docile and adjust to their new homes much quicker.