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

If you’re new here, you may want to subscribe to my RSS feed. Thanks for visiting!

With the increasing popularity of the Quaker (monk) parrot, now might be a good time to cover a few issues related to them. It’s strange how many pet stores know so little about these guys, yet it’s my opinion they are a great starter bird for people just getting into parrots.

Quakers are unique. They are the only bird in their species of parrot. They are the only type of parrot that builds nests in colonies, using whatever materials they can find to construct their nest. All other parrots seek out hollow trees.

They are a fairly quiet bird, but are known to have an occasional “chatter” type of scream. This makes them a good bird for people living in apartments. They have a lot of other similarities to Conures. They are very friendly, easy to train, and are great talkers.

But Quakers have a few health problems that need to be addressed. While these problems can also strike other birds, Quakers are more prone to them. But they can easily be resolved once you recognize the symptoms, and begin early prevention.

FATTY LIVER DISEASE

Quakers are prone to being overweight. This will usually lead to health issues, especially to Fatty Liver Disease. It is also triggered by poor diets, especially those lacking Vitamin B Choline. Choline is necessary for nerve function and fat metabolism… leading to an overweight Quaker! Vitamin B is easily supplied by feeding your bird egg yolks, legumes, and whole grain cereals with their regular diets.

Another vital item missing from their diet is Methionine. This amino acid also helps eliminate fat from accumulating in the liver, bladder and kidneys, and reduces cholesterol in the blood. Methionine is very common in high protein foods like fish, meat, eggs and milk.

Quaker’s are prone to Fatty Liver Disease. So the best prevention is to know and understand their unique nutritional requirements. Avoid high fat diets! The main cause for this is in seed diets. And since seed is a very poor source for Vitamin B Choline and Methionine, you must supplement their seed with other foods.

Some additional methods to prevent FLD is feeding dandelion greens. This herb has been used as a liver aid in many birds, and some tests suggest that it works well with Quakers, and stimulates certain liver functions such as increasing bile production.

One other cause for FLD is the introduction of toxins into the bird’s diet. This “toxic injury” is often caused from eating improperly prepared foods. Diseases caused by E-Coli and Salmonella quickly damage their livers and trigger FLD. Quakers are also very sensitive to household chemicals and other airborne pollutants. Cleaning products, deodorizers, insecticides and other cleaning products must be used with caution around their cage and living area.

Prevention is fairly easy if you understand all of these factors, and watch out for early signs of problems.

Do not let your bird become overweight. Learn how to examine their chest and abdomen. You can “feel” how fat the bird is this way. You could also monitor the bird’s weight by purchasing a digital scale.

Fatty Liver disease will trigger an unusual growth or abnormalities in the beak. This requires constant trimming and shaping of the beak to prevent eating problems.

Look for black spots on the toenails and beak. These are signs of hemorrhaging, similar to a bruise.

If you are uncertain, a quick trip to the vet for a blood test will reveal any problems with the bird. Your vet will prescribe additional vitamins and other meds. DO NOT medicate your bird without first consulting a vet, and never give your bird more vitamins then recommended. This can do more harm to your bird then it helps to prevent.

Doves can make an excellent pet. But many people have not discovered this breed of bird yet. Why? Doves are supposed to fly around outside and poop on cars. Why would you want to keep them as pets? Well, lots of reasons.

Size – They are medium sized bird from 4-8 inches long. Smaller doves can easily be kept in cages in the home. Larger doves are commonly kept in flight cages, or many times in outside aviaries. Don’t confuse these with pigeons! That is a totally different class of birds!

Maintenance – Not much different then larger birds. Their diet is a good finch seed/pellet mix, supplemented with dark greens and chopped up fruit and vegetables. The doves we raised didn’t seem to care for those, forcing us to supplement their diet with vitamins. Doves are on of the few birds that require grit in their diet. Look for some high calcium forms of grit that are made of digestible ingredients like cuttlebone, oyster shell. Our birds were fed a special dove seed mix that was largely millet and chip peas. We supplement it with greens and vitamins.

Our “special” white doves were fed a special diet because when we took them to “events” we didn’t want them pooping all over the place! More on that later.

Noisy? Not at all. Doves have a wonderful “cooing” sound that adds a great atmosphere to the home, opposed to the loud screeching sound of parrots.

Cost? Most common doves are very inexpensive. There are some special breeds of “show” doves that can be very pricy. But the average ringneck or white dove sells for around $20. They are very easy to breed, and very hardy.

Doves love human contact. They are easy to finger train, and they do not bite. This makes them a great starter bird for small kids. After handling these birds, they will easily move on to larger birds, and have a good understand on how to care for them.

The most common doves are Ringneck and Diamond Doves. Ringneck Doves come in over 40 color variations.

Diamond doves have become a very popular pet. They are one of the smallest of the dove species, have a gray body with off-white chest and stomach. Many have a few blue and chestnut colored wing feathers. They are hardy, and rarely get sick unless they are poorly cared for. They can be caged with other birds, such as finches. Many people keep a pair of these birds, as they mate for life. They are known to live for at least 15 year in captivity.

We raised a lot of white doves. We had a side business with our aviary. We rented our doves and decorated cages to be used at weddings, funerals, and other special events. It was quite an experience to see a church full of wedding guests listening to the cooing of a dozen doves while the wedding ceremonies were in progress. At funerals, the cooing helped to sooth the sadness, and the doves significance in religious ceremonies is an important factors to many groups.

The problem is that many people want to perform “dove releases”. Unfortunately, the birds used in those ceremonies are not doves, but white racing pigeons. If you release a normal dove, it does not fly back to its coup the way pigeons do, as they do not have the homing instincts. By releasing white doves you are only sending them off to their death, unless they can manage to adjust to living in the wild, and can avoid predators.

If I have you interested in keeping a few doves, just keep in mind that they will require a cage big enough to flap their wings and exercise. Doves must be able to fly, so you normally do not clip their wings. Doves can not climb the way other birds and parrots do, and can not get away from danger unless they fly away. Losing that ability can have some psychological effects on the bird.

They do produce a fair amount of dander. You can mist them off, but some people will just take them into the sink and spray them there. I’ve talked to a few dove owners that would literally bathe their birds in a mild dish soap. This was the only decent way to completely clean a White Dove.

Do not leave doves in a drafty area. While they can tolerate cool weather, they can’t handle the drafts. They are also very sensitive to smoke and odors, so it’s best to keep them away from kitchen areas.

A wise person once told me that if you wanted to know how to get out of debt, don’t talk to a credit counselor. They have never gone through it, so how could they help you? Instead, talk to someone who has filed bankruptcy, and find out how they recovered from it.

If you want to know how to prevent, or clean up, a Psittacosis outbreak, who would you go to? A veterinarian or someone who had it happen to them? That would be me! But the good part of this story is it we were very lucky… it was an incorrect test result. But at the time we did not know that, and had one of the worst three months of our lives!

“CHLOE IS DEAD!”

Our nightmare began several years ago. Our aviary was in full production, and we had over 100 birds. Sapphyre, went out to check on our birds and discovered one of our best African Grays dead on the bottom of her cage.

Now understand, it’s terrible to lose any bird. But it’s totally unacceptable to lose a bird without learning something from the loss. Why did Chloe die? Sapphyre has an incredible habit of being able to sense when a bird is sick, but Chloe never showed a sign. So she was thinking it was a nutritional problem. Since I have specialized in feeding and nutrition, I was anxious to understand what I had done wrong. So we sent the body to Michigan State University’s Small Animal Clinic for a necropsy.

PSITTACOSIS

A few days later we got the results. There was a positive test for Psittacosis. This is also know as “Parrot Disease”. It is extremely contagious, not only to birds but to humans. It can be transmitted to other animals, including chickens, turkeys and ducks. That makes this not only an agriculture concern, but also a public health concern. Once word got out that we were “infected” the nightmare began!

We were immediately ordered to place our birds into quarantine. Anyone going in or out needed to practice extreme good hygiene practices, and we started wearing lab coats over our clothes. Everyone in the family was put on antibiotics.

Cages had to be 100% cleaned and disinfected every day. Walls, floors, you name it! All birds needed to be treated with the antibiotic tetracycline. We were extremely lucky that one of the few companies in the country that manufactures food with this drug already added is just an hour’s drive away! It was expensive, and many of our birds wouldn’t eat it. We were therefore forced to hand feed tetracycline to those birds.

Every few days we had to collect stool samples to be sent to the lab for testing. Unless we got a clean bill of health for three straight weeks, our birds would remain in quarantine. If not cured, we could end up having all our birds confiscated.

FALSE POSITIVE

Not one single test that we sent in contained Psittacosis! We found out after this nightmare was over that the current tests for this disease result in a lot of false readings. Recent advances in blood testing have drastically improved these results, but several years ago they were not yet approved. So, in an effort to err on the side of caution, the government would declare any positive test as the truth, and take aggressive action to prevent an outbreak.

And if that means the breeder must endure the expense of their error…in our case several thousand dollars of medications and testing… so be it! Is there any wonder why bird breeders are so careful about ordering such testing? A positive test will put them totally out of business. The government does not replace confiscated birds. This is poor prevention, and the government needs to change their policies.

CONCLUSION…

In the end, we never did find out what killed Chloe. But we learned an awful lot about Psittacosis. This disease is spread through the air. Generally, it’s passed through bird droppings and nasal discharges. When the droppings dry, they turn to power and blow around into the air, eventually finding their way to other birds (and humans) who inhale it.

In humans, the cure is easily controlled with antibiotics. This disease is still prevalent, and since many birds are “carriers” and don’t show any signs of the disease, it can be difficult to control. There are no vaccinations for this disease at this time. So the only real practical prevention is to make sure you practice good avian hygiene, and be aware that if you visit a pet store or bird aviary you may walk away with this disease on your clothes, and end up carrying it back to your own birds. New birds should always go through a 30 day quarantine before placing them near your other birds.

Learn the warning signs! If the bird shows trouble breathing, poor appetite, lethargy, discharges from the eye or excessive nasal discharge, or diarrhea, these are the early signs. Yellow or lime-green droppings is another sign. This is one of the disadvantage of feeding colored pellets to birds…it can make it difficult to monitor the birds droppings. In later stages, the bird may show weakness, tremors, shaking for convulsions. At this point immediate action needs to be taken to save the bird.

Hopefully this problem will never happen to you. It’s sad to lose a bird, but to see your entire aviary die is devastating! Not only emotionally, but by seeing a business you have attempted to build be instantly destroyed!

While surfing around the internet recently, I stumbled into the middle of a debate. Do you give grit to your birds?

On the one side, we have the folks who insist that birds must have grit in order to digest their food. Without it, they will die a quick death! Besides, if grit was bad, then why would all of the pet stores sell boxes of grit in the bird departments?

My response? Most pet stores do not hire knowledgeable people. They are more concerned in selling products like mite protectors and grit, and let the buyer beware if they are safe or not!

WHY GRIT?

In the wild, birds don’t have a tremendous choice in what they eat. Many times they will have to settle on seeds. Most wild birds are soft billed, meaning they eat the seed whole and don’t “shell” the seed first. The hull is non-digestible, so wild birds will also eat a few pieces of grit. This will act as an abrasive. Once the seed and grit enter the gizzard (which is similar to the human stomach), the muscle action combines with the grit, and rubs off the shell and grinds up the food. Eventually the shell gets passed through the system.

Healthy, captive birds are fed a pelleted diet, fruits and vegetables. The seed that they eat is generally shelled, and the birds eat the nut. Only a few types of captive birds, such as finches, canaries and doves, eat the whole seed. These types of birds are soft billed, and are unable to shell the seeds. In these cases only should grit be offered, but only a few grains a week. If the bird is allowed to consume too much grip, it will become impacted in the crop and gizzard, causing severe medical problems.

Another reason birds will eat grit is to supplement their diet. There are several types of “soluble” grit that birds can safely digest. This form of grit is made from ground up cuttlebone, powered oyster shell, gypsum and limestone. Once ingested, the bird dissolves this material with digestive acids as it passes through the digestive system. This is a much safer form of grit than offering stone or sand, which is often sold in pet stores or even mixed in with the bird seed.

SHOULD YOU FEED GRIT?

Very few domesticated birds will require grit. This will include finches, doves, pigeons, and canaries. However, if you do feed grit, only give a few grains per week. Do not offer grit in a separate bowl, as the birds will over consume it, and develop problems. Do not give silica based grit designed for wild birds. Look for soluble brands that contain a high calcium content. Look at the ingredients to make sure it does not contain rock or sand grit.

Do not use gravel paper. Not only is this made from rock, it’s also on the bottom of the cage with the bird droppings! I have never figured out the logic in this.

There seems to be a resurgence of people recommending that you feed your pet bird mealworms. I don’t know why…these people seem to come around in cycles.

We were introduced to mealworms several years ago. A salesman called us up. At that time we were at the biggest stage of running our aviary, and did some advertising. That usually brings the salesmen to us. We were already aware of mealworms, but just barely.

This guy told us that pet birds LOVE mealworms. After all, wild birds eat them all of the time, and captive birds would greatly benefit from the protein they supply to the diet. Well….OK, that sounded reasonable.

He gave us a box of samples, and some literature, and basically was trying to get us to push his product on our customers. Again, this was reasonable request. But since I was the main nutritionist for our aviary, I needed to be more convinced. So I experimented for the next few weeks with feeding mealworms.

My first “test subject” was my breeding pair of African Grays. Since their diet required lots of protein, especially for breeders, they would probably love to try them. They took one look at their food dish, saw that it had a bunch of crawling bugs in it, screamed and ran into their breeding box. It took several hours to get them to return to the food dish again.

The only birds that seemed even a bit interested in mealworms were my finches, and even with those birds we had mixed results.

WHAT ARE MEALWORMS?

Mealworms are the larvae of the darkling, or flour beetles. They are not really “worms”, but the larvae just before turning into beetles (after about 10 weeks). They are an excellent source of protein, which is severely lacking in many fruit and seed diets that wild birds are accustomed to. Therefore, wild birds look to insects to supplement their diet. And mealworms are mighty tasty to them.

They are very easy to grow. Generally, fill up a box with rolled oats, toss in some slices of apple, potato, or carrots, and add some mealworms. They can also be purchased in a freeze-dried state. These are commonly sold in pet stores, and are used mostly for reptile and fish food. But home-grown mealworms are very popular for feeding wild birds. But since captive pet birds were never introduced to them, they are generally fed by their parents, or hand fed a powered formula by their breeders. Foraging for insects never quite got into their education.

Mealworms come in a variety of sizes. Small ones are ½ inch, and will grow to as much as an inch in size. The very large sizes are just common mealworms that are treated with a growth hormone that prevents them from developing into beetles, and grow even larger!

If you want to try your birds out on mealworms, what I would suggest is getting a small quantity of them. If your bird shows an interest in them, grow your own. They are a little expensive to buy, but since they are easy to grow yourself you can keep a never ending supply of them on hand.

The main advantage of mealworms is the high protein they supply. Most captive birds do not require such a high amount. The birds that seem to eat them are soft billed birds, such as Finches and Canaries. These types of birds love the small seed diets, like millet. Since these seeds lack a not of nutritional value, you need to supplement their diet with whatever you can find. If they will eat mealworms, that’s great!

But for other birds, I have not found any great advantage of feeding mealworms. They will have an easier time eating other sources of protein. The expense and trouble of feeding mealworms does not justify making this a major portion of their diet. If your bird will eat them, give it a try. But I wouldn’t try changing their diet over.