Inappropriate Nutrition in Parrots

Many people tend to think that offering their parrots 'small tit-bits' is an acceptable practice and since the birds give every indication that they are enjoying these 'treats', the owners continue, blissfully unaware of the considerable damage that can be incurred.

Popular 'junk food' and snacks are frequently offered, together with excessive amounts of cheese, milk and even baked bean or bolognese sauces. All of these can and almost invariably will, cause serious problems over a period of time and can contribute to a very early death.

Cheese is really only permissible in very small quantities - possibly the equivalent of a half inch cube no more than once per week/10 days - the salt & fat content alone is far too high for regular inclusion in the diet. Cheese contains valuable calcium and vitamins, however the benefits from these are considerably outweighed by the disadvantages of the excess fats and salts. Ideally, a few light scrapings can be scattered over food as an occasional treat to add flavouring.

Milk is sometimes given along with cereals as a regular breakfast 'treat'. This should be totally excluded - parrots do not possess lactase (the enzyme which converts lactose) and cannot digest raw milk. In time, severe allergies and potentially life threatening conditions can occur, including acute inflammation of the entire gastro-intestinal system resulting in very severe diarrhoea. Milk has absolutely no part in the diet of a parrot. Conversely, natural, live, low-fat yoghurt is one of the very few, beneficial dairy products and can be safely offered from time to time.

Many breakfast cereals are fortified with vitamins and these can be highly injurious, causing chronic hyper-vitaminoses in time. No foods which are fortified with human vitamin and mineral requirements should ever be offered to parrots. These additives are totally unsuitable and the amounts contained, excessive from an avian point of view. If breakfast cereals are to be offered, straight wheat/oat/rice combinations with no additives whatsoever, are not only acceptable, but appear to be highly beneficial and can be offered either dry. or moistened with warm water or natural fruit juice. Above all, cereals with 'added iron' must be avoided since iron accumulates in the blood system, gradually rising to toxic levels.

Crackers, cookies, biscuits, french fries, corn & potato chips are all heavily laden with fats, salt and sugar and should never be offered. Even the very plain, 'English-style' biscuit is only allowable in minuscule quantities, on a very infrequent basis and certainly never every day. Parrots are not human and do not have a digestive system that remotely resembles ours. Since this kind of 'junk food' can seriously affect humans, think of what it can do to a parrot.

Baked Beans in tomato sauce, spaghetti bolognese or chilli sauce are all frequently offered, but even these can be problematic. Here, both sugar and salt content is very high and the tomato sauce in Baked Beans, ready made bolognese or chilli, is also invariably rich in just about every preserving and flavouring chemical it is possible to get. Many 'ready made' bolognese and chilli sauces also contain significant levels of fat and this has to be taken into consideration. Much the same applies to home-made gravy and its use should be very sparing and infrequent. There is precious little in terms of real food value in these sauces from a human standpoint and absolutely nothing of value to a parrot. If baked beans are to be offered, they should be rinsed clean of the sauce beforehand. A much better alternative is to offer cooked haricot beans that have been simmered with fresh or dried chillis for flavouring.

It is worth mentioning here that the average western human diet consists of approximately 20-30% proteins, 10-15% fats and about 40-50% carbohydrate, whereas a parrot, which has developed along an entirely different evolutionary path, needs only about 12% protein, 3-4% fat with the remainder being carbohydrate. Obviously crude fibre is recognised as being essential in human diets, but it's importance in the avian/parrot diet is not yet fully understood. Logically, it seems safe to assume that a significant amount of bulky fibrous material is necessary for the proventriculus (crop) to function properly.

A parrot's needs are entirely different to ours and are almost alien by comparison. An active African Grey parrot in captivity requires just 90 -100 calories per day to satisfy its total energy requirements. If you consider that just a small cookie or potato chip contains nearly half of that amount, it is easy to see that it does not take much to exceed the calorific requirement by a considerable degree. Even a small, cube of hard cheese weighing just 10 grams contains about 45 calories - a treat that is providing half of the entire calorific requirement for a whole day!

Many human-type foods are packed with empty calories and any excesses will be converted to fats which in parrots, are deposited around the liver, kidneys and heart. Fat deposition around the major organs is progressive, accumulative, highly damaging and ultimately fatal. Excess salts can severely impair kidney function ultimately leading to their failure and inappropriate vitamins in RDA's designed for humans, can lead to acute and debilitating, if not immediately life-threatening toxicoses. Even excessive amounts of protein of around 18-20% can severely tax the renal and hepatic system, as well as contribute to the formation of stones and render the bird prone to gout.

Far too many parrots kept as pets, live barely one third of their potential life span and in the vast majority of cases, poor or rather, inappropriate nutrition is the main cause. Vitamin deficiencies are easily caused by eating too few of the proper foods due to an excess of 'treat food's being consumed. Vitamin excesses from fortified human foods, cause imbalances in calcium transfer, leading to nerve-ending disorders, gout, kidney stones, liver and kidney failure as well as a host of lesser, but for the bird, extremely distressing conditions. Chronic or acute, gastro-intestinal inflammations caused by milk and other substances which are indigestible to parrots, leave the system open to candida infections - especially when combined with a vitamin A deficiency, whilst fat deposition around the major organs is an all too common occurrence resulting in tissue atrophy and subsequent organ failure. All of these conditions are eventually life threatening, shortening a bird's span by a considerable degree.

Problems may take ten or fifteen years to become evident, but invariably start with a young bird being given 'treats' because we foolishly think that "just a little bit can't do any harm" (based presumably on the notion that "a little of what you fancy does you good"). Unfortunately, a tiny bit from the human point of view is often the equivalent of an enormous dinner-plate piled high from the bird's perspective. Eating a plateful of cookies, potato chips and lumps of cheese on top of the normal dietary intake on a daily basis, leads to severe and highly dangerous levels of obesity in humans. However, parrots (with the notable exception of Amazons and a few parakeets) rarely show such outward signs of obesity. They do not possess fat storing tissues below the skin surface as do many animals and even a thin Grey or Cockatoo, can be suffering from acute fat problems.

It is probably true to say that in isolation, the inclusion of a single 'junk' item is unlikely to do that much damage, but invariably bad and unsafe feeding practices involve the provision of a broad band of unsuitable foods and this often starts with just the occasional, bad treat.

Without a doubt, it is difficult to ignore a pet bird that is begging for a taste of its owner's food and to some of us, it may seem fun to share. However, indulgences of this sort do the bird no favours whatsoever and could easily condemn it to a greatly shortened life as a result. There are plenty of good, nutritious and wholesome foods which can be offered and whilst they may not appear quite so appetizing to us, it must be remembered that the bird is a parrot and does not have our metabolism, taste buds or digestive capabilities.

Our parrots may act like 'little people', but they are as remote from us as it is possible for a warm blooded creature to get. We would all do our birds a great service to remember this.

David Poole

©copyright David Poole 1998