Month: March 2019

How do I get my bird to eat vegetables?

How do I get my bird to eat vegetables?

This is entirely from personal experience, but I’ve been able to get even very reluctant vegetable eaters like cockatiels to eat lots of green like beet greens, mustard, kale, lettuce, carrots, asparagus, and bok choy. It’s a simple suggestion: use clothes pins.

If I put vegetables in a bowl, the cockatiels especially take no notice of it, but something about a clothes pin makes it more like a game or perhaps provides counter-pressure that makes it easier to eat them.

I’ve had success to traditional clothes pins and some plastic ones, although each may be prone to getting destroyed by birds, depending on the species. Here are Amazon links to both kinds I’ve used.

Whitmor Natural Wood Clothespins
OXO Good Grips Magnetic All-Purpose Clips

I use the Oxo ones, which you can clip into the dishwasher to thoroughly clean them. Clothespins should work just as well, but it depends on the dishwasher whether you’ll be able to position them to get fully cleaned.… READ THE REST

Hygiene hypothesis and birds

Hygiene hypothesis and birds

This is a food for thought post. What’s now called the Hygiene Hypothesis was first proposed in 1872 and was studied in depth in a well known study from 1989:

“Over the past century declining family size, improvements in household amenities, and higher standards of personal cleanliness have reduced the opportunity for cross infection in young families,” the paper continued. “This may have resulted in more widespread clinical expression of atopic disease, emerging in wealthier people, as seems to have occurred for hay fever.”

Hay Fever, Hygiene, and Household Size—British Medical Journal—1989—David P Strachan

Although the theory fell out of favor for awhile, it’s returning and is well described in a new book which is excerpted in the New York Times this month.

What does the immune system do when it’s not properly trained?

It can overreact. It becomes aggrieved by things like dust mites or pollen. It develops what we called allergies, chronic immune system attacks — inflammation — in a way that is counterproductive, irritating, even dangerous.

… READ THE REST
Sources of Vitamin D

Sources of Vitamin D

Just like humans, parrots can become deficient in Vitamin D and suffer health consequences such as low calcium (hypocalcemia).

Hypocalcaemia is low calcium levels in the blood serum […] symptoms may include numbness, muscle spasms, seizures, confusion, or cardiac arrest […] Common causes include hypoparathyroidism and vitamin D deficiency.

Hypocalcemia—Wikipedia

The following are common dietary sources of Vitamin D.

Animal products
Alfalfa
Seaweed
Mushrooms

Vitamin D—Wikipedia
Alfalfa—Wikipedia
Seaweed Nutrition and Health Benefits—UC Berkeley Wellness

While the typical parrot diet consists of none of these.

“The most important components of most parrots’ diets are seeds, nuts, fruit, buds, and other plant material. A few species sometimes eat animals and carrion, while the lories and lorikeets are specialised for feeding on floral nectar and soft fruits.”

Parrot—Wikipedia

This leaves a few options:

  • Sunlight (or equivalent)
  • Processed food (pellets) that contains artificial Vitamin D
  • Getting your bird to eat mushrooms, alfalfa, or seaweed (!)

The processed food route is undoubtedly the easiest, but beware that hypervitaminosis (overdose) can occur.… READ THE REST