- Dec 18, 2013
- 22,301
- 4,216
- Parrots
- Maya (Female Solomon Island eclectus parrot), Jolly (Male Solomon Island eclectus parrot), Bixby (Male, red-sided eclectus. RIP), Suzie (Male cockatiel. RIP)
Hey, everyone! This marks my first posted thread; not only to this site, but to the internet in general. And at 39, I suppose that makes me something of a rarity. Lol! Until now, however, I've never really felt drawn to do so. But I have been singularly impressed by the sense of community present in this site, forged by the love you all have for your companion parrots. So here I am, a fellow psittacine enthusiast, hoping to share in and benefit from the combined wisdom and demonstrated goodwill of this community. I have very recently welcomed a 5+ month old male eclectus into my family. Bixby basically claimed our hearts back in August as a 5 week old hatchling, and our bond to him grew over the (long) months of weaning until we finally were able to take him home the week of Thanksgiving. Now, Bixby isn't the first parrot we've owned. That honor belongs to our cockatiel of 17 years, Suzie. (Poor Suzie was actually a tragically misidentified MALE cockatiel, but by the time I had done enough reading to recognize the store owner's blunder, we were several years too late to change his gender-challenged name. But I digress.) Suzie died around 2 years ago of a kidney disease, and it has taken my wife and me all this time to again reach the point where we could welcome another parrot into our family. In this short time, we have come to love Bixby dearly, but we have also come to realize that his needs, as an eclectus, are far more specialized than were those of our beloved cockatiel. Furthermore, a lot of the information available on these beautiful birds is often conflicted and even outright contradictory. Kale, broccoli and corn have been alternately lauded and demonized, depending on where you look. The same is true of turnips, beets, a number of beans, and so on. Some veggies are touted as great sources of calcium, and then denounced elsewhere as "enzyme inhibitors". The only things that seem almost universally agreed upon are the importance of vitamin A and the benefits of carrots and pumpkin in providing it, the fact that fresh fruits and veggies should form the bulk of their diets, and the evil effects of colored pellets. So as you might imagine, after my admittedly (and unexpectedly) long-winded introduction, I am looking for some help here. Here are my questions: 1) Can anyone tell me what vitamins, proteins, nutrients, etc are needed for a strong and healthy eclectus parrot, and which foods might provide them? (Please don't think I'm avoiding doing my homework, here. I have spent copious amounts of time researching this, and I have come to realize that I need the wisdom of those who already have experience with an eclectus.) 2) Can anyone tell me how long it takes from the presence of a nutritional imbalance for a stress bar to form on the feathers? I ask this because I have noticed a few on Bixby (judging from descriptions I have read on this very site) and I was wondering if they were a reflection of the diet I provide now, or the diet he had for the majority of his short life at the pet store. He was well cared for, there, but his diet consisted of pellets (uncolored), this kind of trail-mix looking combination of dried fruits, seeds (mostly sunflower and pumpkin), nuts, and other stuff, and some other crunchy tidbits (some of which were colored) that I don't know the names of. Over the past 3+ weeks since he has been in my care, I've eliminated the pellets and crunchy colored bits entirely, reduced the "trail-mix" portions to maybe a quarter of his daily diet, and made the majority of his food intake fruits and veggies. (Pumpkin, carrot, varied types of squash, jalapenos, bell peppers, Jamaican hot peppers, pomegranates, mangoes, apples, grapes, quinoa, brown rice, wheat bread, brussels sprouts, broccoli, cucumber and corn chief among them.) And 3) When is the best time to start "potty training" him? And does anyone have any tried and true tips for doing so? This obviously isn't as urgent a concern, but any help in this arena would also be appreciated. Anyhow, I apologize for this OVERLY long post, and promise all future postings will be significantly shorter in length. Thanks in advance for taking the time to read all of this.
