Make your pet happy with the right parrot food
Today, pet stores offer a huge selection of various food for parrots, the main of which is a grain mixture. It is desirable that this product be packed in a tight sealed bag. Be sure to pay attention to the expiration date of the product.
Below are the feeds of foreign manufacturers, which are of excellent quality:
- XtraVital (Netherlands);
- Fiory (Italy);
- Prestige (Belgium);
- Sluis (Holland);
- Vitakraft (Germany);
- and many others dr.
You can also choose excellent food from domestic products.
Consider the daily ration when feeding with a grain mixture:
- food for budgies - 1-2 teaspoons;
- for medium-sized birds - 3 tbsp. spoons;
- for large - 4 tbsp. spoons and more.
The parrot must eat all the offered food, only then add a new portion to it. It is worth noting that grain feed alone is not enough, your feathered pets need extra food.
Diet for a budgerigar
What to feed the budgies, except for the main food? This question is of interest to many owners of an exotic bird. Let's consider it in more detail.
Animal feed
Wavy feed should contain proteins. Therefore, it is so important for birds to use boiled eggs, low-fat cottage cheese. Eggs can be added to vegetable mixes, and cottage cheese can be added to fruit and berry mixes.
The curd mixture spoils quickly at room temperature. Therefore, after half an hour, such food should be thrown into the trash.
Plant feed
Energy to humans and animals is provided by carbohydrates and vitamins. Basically, they are found in plant foods, which are easily absorbed by the body. Vegetable food for parrots is divided into vegetable, fruit, berry, grain (this includes seeds), nut and twig.
Vegetables, fruits, berries
Fruits, vegetables, berries, herbs are cut into small pieces or grated. Then they are placed in a separate feeder or mixed with other products. Pear and apple can be fresh, boiled or dried. Birds are very fond of apricots, plums, pomegranates, citruses, bananas. The fruit is peeled as it may contain chemicals.
You can also feed wavy berries with berries (fresh, dried or steamed):
- raspberries;
- rowan;
- grapes;
- currants;
- honeysuckle;
- rosehip;
- sea buckthorn.
From vegetables, parrots can be given turnips, beets, pumpkin, zucchini, bell peppers - all fresh. Parrots love tomato pulp and seeds. But this fruit must be ripe, since the unripe one contains the poison solanine. Beans, peas, corn should be young when they are filled with "milk" juice.
Preferred organic vegetables grown in their own garden and do not contain pesticides.
Give salad and spinach in small doses, so as not to cause intestinal upset in winged friends.
Grains and seeds
If you do not use ready-made food for parrots, then buy them millet (yellow, red, white) and oats, and give them as a grain mixture, 80:20 ratio.
Other permitted grains include wheat, buckwheat, and barley. Sometimes you can add several meadow grass seeds to your pet's diet, as well as sesame, rapeseed, canary, hemp, flaxseed, Abyssinian nougat, sunflower and pumpkin seeds.
Sprouted grain is a valuable nutritious product that stimulates the body's vital functions. Sprouted seeds of grain crops (millet, oats, wheat, buckwheat, barley) are especially necessary for birds during molting and feeding chicks. Soak any kind of grain in advance for 11-13 hours.
Bad grain will float to the surface, good grain will remain at the bottom.
When the seeds are swollen, leave them for a couple of days to germinate. The sprouts that appear are very useful. It is important to ensure that the grain does not have very long sprouts, since they contain more valuable substances than green "thickets".
Nuts, seeds
Parrots love seeds and nuts: hazelnuts, pistachios, walnuts. Please note that nuts - a very fatty product that is contraindicated for daily feeding of birds. You can treat parrots with this delicacy no more than 1 time in 10-15 days.
Vitamins and mineral supplements
Parrots should contain minerals and vitamin supplements in their cages. Pet stores today offer a wide range of such feedings. They are packed with briquettes, which are convenient to cling to in the cage.
As for minerals, they are of two types:
- organic (chalk, sepia, shell rock, bone meal, activated carbon, eggshell) - are a source of calcium;
- inorganic (gastroliths) - normalize digestion.
Calcium gluconate and glycerophosphate tablets are also useful for poultry. You can buy them at a veterinary clinic or pharmacy. Without vitamins and minerals, the body of parrots cannot function normally.
Branch feed
What else can parrots, besides ready-made and homemade food? Birds love to sharpen something with their sharp beak. Released from the cage to fly, they try everything that comes their way: whitewash, wallpaper, cornice, plinth and other inedible things. Fresh tree twigs will help distract your pet from such gnawing. Parrots will stretch their paws on them and chew on the kidneys and bark with pleasure.
The main thing is that the drinker has clean and fresh water. You can sometimes add a couple of drops of lemon juice to it.
Forbidden Products
What should parrots not eat? It:
- Millet - as it can develop gastrointestinal diseases in birds.
- Such exotic fruits as persimmons, mangoes, avocados can cause intoxication in the bird.
- Melons and watermelons can provoke a pet's intestinal upset, which threatens its death.
- Prohibited vegetables include: radish, radish, daikon, eggplant, celery, garlic, onion.
- Remember - Chinese cabbage contains nitrates hazardous to health.
- You should also know that some plants have a detrimental effect on the body of birds. Therefore, parrots should not be fed with parsley, dill, hyssop, celery, cilantro and other spices.
- Do not give your birds branches of oak, bird cherry, lilac, acacia, poplar. It is extremely rare to offer the parrot a sprig of coniferous trees.
- Roasted seeds are dangerous for parrots. Don't risk your birds' lives.
- Peanuts are included in most ready-made feeds, so you don't need to give them extra, as the film of unpeeled nuts is often moldy.
- Fresh bread is strictly contraindicated for birds. But often treat your winged friends with a crouton of white bread.
Thus, having selected the optimal food for parrots, your pets will eat it with pleasure and feel great. After all, the health and happiness of your pet directly depends on proper nutrition.