In order for the domestic parrot to feel good, maintain a bright rainbow plumage and delight the owners with carefree twittering, he needs proper care and a healthy diet. Experienced breeders try to diversify the diet in order to bring it closer to natural food. How to feed a parrot at home?
The necessary nutritious mixtures, various goodies for taming and promotion, useful feed additives are selected in accordance with the needs of the pet. The most popular breeds among bird lovers are the budgerigar and lovebird. With all the similarities in content, their needs vary. Therefore, acceptable rations should be considered separately.
How to feed a budgie
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 be up to 30% of the daily allowance. In addition, canary seeds, hemp and flax seeds are needed. A healthy adult parrot should eat two teaspoons of grain per day. Females during breeding and young animals eat a little more.
Before putting the grain mixture into the feeder, it should be checked for debris, insects and unpleasant odors. The weighted grain must be washed and dried at room temperature before use. Ready-made feeds greatly facilitate the care of a parrot. Verified manufacturers offer environmentally friendly processed grain, properly formulated mixtures, peeled oats and wheat. When buying, you should carefully study the label where the composition of the mixture is written. Vitaminized and iodized, as well as feed with additives for the brightness of the pen should be used with caution, only during molting or as a therapeutic diet.
Germination helps to check the freshness of the feed. A pinch of grain is soaked in water for a day. Wrap in moist cotton 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. You can safely feed the bird 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 every day.
Another type of soft food is cereal (without milk, butter, salt 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 feed and clean up the leftovers on time.
A parrot bought at a store, not from a breeder, is probably not accustomed to such a treat. A new product should be introduced into the diet gradually, in small portions.
Succulent feed
How can I feed a parrot, except for food? Every day he should receive fresh products. Fruits, vegetables, and herbs are an important source of vitamins, minerals, and fiber.
How to feed a parrot from vegetables:
- carrot;
- zucchini;
- melon;
- pumpkin;
- milk corn;
- beans;
- green pea.
What is the feeding of parrots from fruits:
- 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, for example quinoa, in spikelets;
- home plants - tradescantia, chlorophytum, Kalanchoe.
Juicy feeds are 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 rods. Sprigs of greens are also better to place higher. So the bird does not stain the treat. Juicy food should not be in the cage for more than two to three hours, especially in the summer, as sliced fruits and vegetables deteriorate quickly.
What are touring
This is fine gravel, sand or crushed shell rock necessary to fill the goiter. Since birds do not have teeth, the process of grinding food occurs in the muscle stomach. The pebbles that the bird swallows quickly erase and go out along with the digested food. It is necessary to constantly fill the goiter with new ones. Therefore, the parrot needs to be daily filled with mineral fertilizer in a separate feeder.
In addition to touring, it may contain chalk, coal, bone meal and sulfur. Ready mixes are sold at pet stores. You can independently make such a mixture of calcined sand, chalk and eggshell.
As a source of easily assimilable calcium, sepia is very useful, that is, shellfish cuttlefish. Pecking crumbs of the shell from a large piece, a parrot can grind a rapidly growing beak.
To care for the beak, a special mineral stone or young tree branches are used. 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. They are best avoided.
Goodies to promote
During the taming and training of the parrot, small pieces of attractive food are needed. With their help, you can lure a bird into your arms or reward you for imitating speech and various tricks. How can I feed a parrot from my hand?
Juicy slices of fruit are perfect as a treat. You can buy in the store special egg biscuits or biscuits with seeds, grains, dried fruits. They have nothing to do with human pastries. They are safe for digestion in small quantities. If the parrot received a nutritious treat, the amount of food can be slightly reduced.
In order to diversify everyday life and entertain the parrot, pet food manufacturers offer sticks that can be hung in a cage. It is important to understand that you can not completely replace the daily diet with goodies, even the most useful. Do not get involved and overfeed the bird from your hands. At home, it’s difficult for a parrot to spend extra calories.
Dangerous products
How to feed a budgie? First of all, human food should be avoided. Salty, sweet, sour, fatty and flour treats are completely excluded. The birds have a too sensitive stomach, so even an excess of fat-containing seeds (sunflower, flax, etc.) can lead to a serious upset.
Soft food should not be hot or cold.
Sharp and spicy vegetables and herbs should be avoided. These are onions, garlic, radishes, radishes, eggplant, celery, parsley, dill. Sour fruits can cause frustration, and such as mango, persimmon, avocado - severe poisoning.
Rules for keeping and feeding birds
In nature, birds find a very diverse food for themselves, eat during the day in small portions. Therefore, it is so important to monitor what parrots are fed at home. Unbalanced feed can cause serious illness. Feeding troughs and drinking bowls should be cleaned daily of yesterday's leftovers and filled with grain mix, pieces of juicy feed, gravel and water. Fasting for more than five hours is dangerous for a parrot.
The pallet in the cage is also regularly cleaned with an odorless detergent. Tropical birds are very susceptible to infections.
For the health of a parrot, not only the correct diet is important, but also the right exercise. In the absence of movement and low activity, obesity and all diseases associated with it are possible. It is necessary to keep the parrot in a fairly spacious cage with various shells for acrobatic exercises.
Tame birds can be released from the cage for flight and communication. In this case, you must follow the safety rules: close windows, doors, turn off the gas and heating appliances, remove toxic substances, plants and other dangerous things from the room. Parrots are very curious and can taste completely inappropriate things.
What do parrots feed during molting? In the off-season, the parrot behaves uneasily and seems unhealthy, the plumage thins and dims. This is due to pen changes and hormonal activity. During this period, the body should be supported with vitamins and increase the amount of succulent feed in the diet. Vitamin supplements can only be given on the recommendation of a veterinarian.
What feed lovebirds
A large body mass determines a large energy consumption. The lovebird eats 4 teaspoons of feed per day. The main features of the diet - in the composition of the mixture and soft feed rich in protein.
Owners should pay maximum attention to what medium-sized parrots are fed, because the quality and life expectancy of pets depends on this. Grain mix for lovebirds contains up to 50% of 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.
In the use of succulent feeds, treats and gastrolites in the content of lovebirds there are no features. The same products and additives are suitable for them as for budgies.