The best diet for pet parrots has been a subject of much dispute for many years already. Even at present, a definite answer has not been formulated yet as to what the diet should be comprised of. The argument centered between natural food like those eaten by such birds on the wild, and pellets that contain the nutritional ingredients parrots may need on a regular basis. However, even without a clear formula for parrots' perfect diet, there are some things known that you should NOT give to your bird pets especially the parrots.
Overly salty or sweet foods are not healthy for your pet parrot if given daily. This is so since a parrot's digestive system is weak and cannot handle excessive amounts of sugar or salt. Likewise, these birds cannot easily excrete the right amount of salt they had ingested, which then caused it to retain within its system and eventually triggers short and long-term health problems.
Dairy products must also be noted. Some pet diets recommend small amounts of yogurt and other dairy products to bolster the digestive function and to increase the calcium levels. This is actually a good idea with other pets such as cats and dogs, but not for birds like parrots because of the very fact that birds are lactose intolerants. You may offer your pet birds with small portions of cheeses or very small amount of yogurts only if you have no other choice. But make sure you do not do this every so often.
One of the common miss-habits when it comes to bird care is feeding birds with shelled peanuts. Although there are renowned bird diets that are comprise of peanuts as part of the essential ingredients, such pet diets also commonly mentioned that peanuts must be stripped, raw and certainly of the best quality. The main reas
on why shelled peanuts are not the best for parrots is they can conveniently yield Aspergillus Fungus. This is a serious condition that causes respiratory system malfunction in your parrot. Additionally, shelled peanuts may be toxic, for they give off aflatoxin. Aflatoxin is a strong carcinogen, or some substance that causes animal cancer.
Any other things that should be cleared off from your pet parrot's food bowl are those with chocolate, or anything with alcohol, caffeine, beans, onions, and foods with high levels of nitrates. But with regards to fruits, you only have to track a few things like apple and avocado seeds as not appropriate. Moreover, some studies came out just recently that grapes carried along some toxins that can be harmful to your pet's digestive system. This has not really been proven to be accurate yet, but for safety measure, it is best to avoid giving such fruit to your pet to maintain its desirable health.
Any uncooked meat is not healthy for the parrots too for the danger of exposing too much bacteria for your pet. And like you and any other animals, spoiled or almost spoiled are not beneficial for birds as well. The same goes for extremely high content of fats in bird foods must be kept away from parrots. Sunflower seeds contain high levels of fat, therefore must be strayed off. A particular food spread with butter or cooked in oil must be strictly limited.
If you take into account all these precautions, and give your parrots only the safe foods to ingest, then you will be assured of a healthy and livelier pet. Keeping your pet parrot healthy is a must as you take the responsibility to care for it. You may think the lists of things you should never feed your bird are endless and difficult to abide, well it isn't actually. There are only few things to remember. And if you decide to stick to all these, you will have a longer-living bird pet.
