How bad is my too’s diet?

[joudb]

Hello everyone!
So I’ve moved 3-4 months ago and since my bird’s diet has gone downhills. I failed to notice at first as I was distracted but now that I am thinking about it, i am extremely concerned.

She has been checked by a vet.

Whenever I try to put my foot down she ends up going to bed hungry which breaks my heart and I end up waking her up and offering her almonds. She starts losing weight if i dont back down



This is her current diet:
Cashews
Almonds
Chickpeas
Corn
Green peas
Rice
Potato
Sweet potato
Watermelon seeds
Lentil
Eggs In which i hide: (interchangeably’) kale, pepper, carrot, spinach.

Things she used to love but REFUSES to touch anymore
Leafy greens, lettuce etc
Beetroot
Carrot
Okra
Bread and vegan pancakes
Pepper
Pomegranate
Homemade Bird bread
Cucumber
Pistachio
Even sunflower seeds


Never liked:
sprouts and most fruit.

. I tried playing with slicing, mixing, cooking to get her to eat them but nothing


Also how bad is her diet? I am not an expert but it seems like its too high in fat which concerns me.
So to compromise should i be giving her less food? She stands next to her bowl and gives a distinct scream when hubgry and i will find it impossible not to feed her

 

[MonicaMc]

Have you ever tried giving her pellets before?

 

[ChristaNL]

Ehm, let me stop you at "midnight snack"
Birds need 12-14 hours (some say 10- but the keyword here is) UNinterrupted sleep.

No wonder she is being difficult.
Birds in the wild never eat at night (wel owls etc. do, but I mean parrots of course /maybe the kakapo differs a bit) the ones living with humans snack sometimes at their own initiative ... but do not wake a bird to make it eat just because you feel bad!

If you keep offering me chocolate I most likely will never eat a healthy meal in my life again!
Birds are fragile, but not made of glass (or insane): there is some common sense in there and a lot of survival instinct .. if carrots are all there is, carrots they will eat!
Simple- just keep an eye on the weight of the bird and you'll find they wil drop a few grams in protest, but it is extremely rare they will let themselves starve to death.

 

[joudb]

Pellets are in the never liked category

I only did the midnight snack thing a couple of times (edited my original post) when i was trying to be strict, but I understand i shouldn’t have.

So push through even if i notice weight loss? Because i have and immediately stopped last time.

 

[LaManuka]

I had a cockatiel who I had a battle of wills with for probably about 8 weeks in total before I got her converted to pellets, she was EXTREMELY resistant to the very idea of them and I was terrified she would starve to death! Finally I ended up crushing her pellets to a powder in a mortar and pestle and sprinkling the powder over her food. This way I figured she would get some extra nutrition and also become accustomed to the taste. Hey presto she was converted pretty much overnight! Now your bird may not convert in quite the same way but it may at least help get her to eat something more nutritious by stealth

 

[ChristaNL]

I have not found any scientific-studies about this, but I think the rule of thumb was that the red flags go up (like with ilness) if they drop more than 10% of their bodyweight.

(Of course some birds are really overweight and could use to lose that anyway ;D so that is between you and your bird and maybe the CAV? Feeling the keel also helps- losing fat is usually a good thing, losing muscle is not.)

A truely hungry/starving bird will be cranky and hyperactive (foraging like mad) or just sink down in apathy.
You will see the huge difference with your "normal" birdbehaviour.
Like people on a diet she will probably be a bit cranky anyway, but you can handle that.

Pellets could be soaked (fruitjuice, or juiche and water-mix) and even warmed to make them more appealing, just get them into the habit of pellet = food.

The CAVs here just put any bird on pellets without any coddling/transition, but there they are surrounded by pellet-eating parrots, so they learn from the flock that pellets are good to eat. We as humans-without-a-flock have a much harder time convincing them.

 

[MonicaMc]

You should probably try getting back to converting her to eating a wide variety... you may need to change how you feed the food though to make it more interesting.

http://www.parrotforums.com/parrot-...7-converting-parrots-healthier-diet-tips.html

 

[Scott]

Monica's treatise on converting to a healthier diet is superb!

Feeding a quality pellet has much merit for a dietary challenged bird. I've found the conversion advice offered by Harrison's to be excellent: Diet Conversion: Medium to Large Bird | Harrison's Bird Foods
Used this earlier this year to convert 8 parrots from Zupreem to Harrison's and worked flawlessly. Protocol ought be effective regardless of the product.