Bee Pollen

[Rik398]

As some of you may know, I took my parrot to the vet, who did a blood test, and found a very very low White Blood Cell Count.

The Vet gave me some antibiotics, to protect her from any potential bug that she may get, as she would not have the immunity to fight it.

I also decided to purchase some bee pollen, as I had heard that it was very good for them indeed.

The parrot was not due back at the vets for a couple of months, but some worries about egg laying saw us back there within three weeks. (we wanted to get some extra calcium, and the last egg she had was an incorrect shape)

The Vet did some more bloods, and we were to wait for the results. When he phoned back, I was expecting bad news, but no.

Within 3 weeks, WBC Count went from .7 to 6.4/ (6.4 is still a little low, but it is a massive step in the right direction bearing in mind the time frame) The Vet seemed reasonably supprised by this massive increase, and asked what I had done. Bee Pollen

So, if anyone wanted any kind of clarification on the use of Bee Pollen, it is massivley helpful.

 

[Purl]

I can't believe you posted this..I was going to ask yesterday if anyone knew if Bee Pollen is good for birds. I have a bag of Dr. Harvey's bee pollen for cat's and dogs. Purl just moved in a couple of weeks ago I was wondering if it would help give her a boost just in case she was under stress.
Did you just mix it with the dry food like pellets since it's just those little yellow balls? Or was yours powdered?

 

[Rik398]

The bee pollen I used came from Holland & Barret, so the bee pollen basically came in pill format for human use. But it is quite soft and breaks down, and because it is natural, it doesn't matter whether it is for people or specifically for animals, as there are no things added or taken away which make it particulalry suitable to us humans.

My parrot loved the stuff, so it was just a case of break a pill in half and she would eat it as it was. But it could be easily crushed up and added to anything, put in with pellets (not sure it would stick... so may need to soak or something) or you can sprinkle it or put it inside fruit.

I didn't get any professional advice on dosage as such. I just took a common sense approach of not too much... so my pills were 500mg, the way I fed it, she probably ended up dropping half of that in crums so would probably work out at about 2-300 mg per day.

Its natural goodness that they can get in the wild, and so I am sure there is little chance of overdosing the bird, but the 2-300 mg per day is what I do, and it works wonders.

If you got it powdered and were wising to add it to pellets, then obviously you could put more in based on how long it takes the bird to finnish a tub of pellets. So 3 days would be 600mg kind of thing. Obviously, depending how you but it, these dosages may not make any sense, but if you were to put it into a reasonablt large bowl of pellets, then I would have thought a couple of tea spoons would work out ok.

But yeah, its very good for birds and mine loves it.

 

[BoomBoom]

Thanks for sharing! Would you recommend regularly giving bee pollen tablets to healthy 4 month old conures for health maintenance?

 

[Spiritbird]

Mysafebirdstore included a sample of bee pollen in one of my orders. Rosie eats it sprinklled overy her food. It is good for us humans too. If you take it yourself it should be bee pollen that is from your local area if for allergies.

 

[Rik398]

I am not sure whether I can recomend it for conures as young as 4 months. I can't see it being a problem, but if it were me I would probably focuss on getting them interested in as many different healthy foods as possible, so that they dont become fussy when you try to introduce them to type of fruit 'x' later on. For example, its quite clear that my conure was introduced to grapes only, so ever since I had her its been a bit of a battle to introduce each new thing.

Once you have them interested in and eating a healthy and varied diet, you can then focuss on adding bee pollen to the food they are eating. That way you have many more ways in which you can add bee pollen to their diet, making it easier to do so in the future.

 

[Purl]

For those interested Dr. Harvey's sells Bee Pollen for birds:

Bee Pollen - Dr. Harvey's

This is what I'm giving Purl, we carry at our store. They also have a Veg to Bowl that is great for those times when you can't get to the store for fresh veggies.
Veg-to-Bowl for Birds - Dr. Harvey's
And
Homemade Cooked Organic Foods For Birds - Dr. Harvey's

We sell a lot of Dr Harvey's for our dog people at the store..we'll be now expanding our line for the bird people.

IMHO -I think they are really good products.

 

[PortaPerch]

from wiki:
Bee bread or bee pollen[1] is a compound consisting of pollen that has been packed by worker honeybees into granules called pollen balls, with added honey or nectar. It is subsequently harvested from hives and used as a food supplement by humans.
Production

Foraging bees bring pollen back to the hive and pass it off to another worker bee. This bee will pack the pollen into a cell with its head. During the packing, the pollen is mixed with nectar, enzymes, fungi and bacteria, organisms that transform the pollen into bee bread. The resulting material is higher in nutrition than the untreated pollen. Bee bread is the primary source of protein for the hive.[2]
Like royal jelly, honey and propolis, other well-known honey bee products, the exact chemical composition of pollen gathered depends on which plants the worker bees are gathering the pollen from, and can vary from hour to hour, day to day, week to week, colony to colony, even in the same apiary, and no two samples of bee bread will be exactly identical. Accordingly, chemical and nutritional analyses of bee bread apply only to the specific samples being tested, and cannot be extrapolated to samples gathered in other places or other times. Although there is no specific chemical composition, the average composition has been said to be 55% carbohydrates, 35% proteins, 3% minerals and vitamins, 2% fatty acids, and 5% of diverse other components.[3]
A recent study of samples of bee bread showed they may contain 188 kinds of fungi and 29 kinds of bacteria.[4] Bee bread is sometimes referred to as ambrosia.[5]
Bee bread is used in naturopathic medicine traditions and as a nutritional supplement, although exposure may trigger allergic or anaphylactic reactions in sensitive people.[1]

 

[erik7181]

I have been told that bee pollen is good for plumage color. Be pollen has been shown to work in a number of medical situations. My mother worked for a pharmaceutical company and a year or two ago they came out with a new wound care bandage called MEDI-honey and it's basically a bandage impregnated with with im guessing honey I m not sure but it was some kind of break through in the medical field.