Management: Pet Birds

By Edward T. Mallinson and Jim A. Stunkard.

Pet birds share many similar basic needs with poultry. This applies especially to sanitation, disease security and fundamental disease prevention.

Nutrition and housing needs, however, are quite different for pet birds as well as are details of their breeding needs and characteristics. The following provides an introduction to many of these differences.

(The authors wish to acknowledge use of Suggested Adult Cage Bird Maintenance Diet and Suggested Aviculture Practices for Psittacines by Dr. Greg J. Harrison, Lake Worth, Fla., for much of the detail in this chapter.)

Nutrition

Whenever possible, make a determined effort to obtain a balanced commercial feed for your birds and to adapt them gradually to it.

In some instances, pet birds or their owners find complete manufactured feeds unacceptable. For example, birds may become "hooked" on seeds, especially sunflower seeds.

In such instances, a program of feeding a large variety of foods free choice may be a necessary second alternative. When so doing, it is wise to provide the assorted foods two times a day.

This allows the bird to become hungry as it would in the wild (nature). Birds fed this way will usually eat a bigger variety of foods. Additionally, feeding 2 to 3 times a day may improve your bond with your bird as it considers you a friend at feeding time.

Several tricks encourage "picky eaters" to adapt to a more nutritionally balanced commercial mix or pellet. Feeding new feeds during the morning and seeds only in the late afternoon may, with patience and persistence, bring about the desired change. Your veterinarian can provide other feeding tips.

Diet Alternatives

Dietary alternatives to commercial feeds are provided below for the owner not yet able to obtain or use commercially formulated rations.

Canaries. Good canary mix: 3 parts canary seed, 1 part rape, 1/4 part niger, 1/4 part each flax and sesame. Available at all times: Mineral, mash, grit, and cuttlebone. Daily: Fresh dark greens, avoiding iceberg lettuce. Carrots can be used when good greens are not available.

Three times weekly: Egg food, song food, pound cake. Twice weekly: Oats, ground nuts or sunflower seed, drop of cod liver oil. Once weekly: Crushed hemp, sprouted rape and crushed lentil sprouts.

Adjustments for breeding season: Dried egg yolk twice daily for hens with young. Greens twice daily. Hemp, song food, ground nuts, sprouted rape, crushed lentil sprouts may be left available all day.

Cockatiels. Seeds: Canary mix, parakeet mix, sunflower, spray millet. Greens: Spinach, alfalfa cubes. Fresh vegetables: Primarily corn, carrots. Fruits: Apples and grapes (often not fond of fruit). Supplements: Salt, cuttlebone, mineral block, oyster shell, cheese, monkey biscuit, and vitamins.

Cockatoos. Psittacine or hook-bill bird diet: Sunflower seeds, monkey biscuits, corn on the cob, apples, oranges, cheese, spinach, carrots, legumes (soybeans and lentils), cooked eggs (especially hard-boiled shell and all), calcium supplements (such as calcium lactate, gluconate carbonate), oyster shells, cuttlebone, supplemental vitamins.

Conures. Psittacine diet described for cockatoos. Other feed: Seeds plus "bread mixture" made of whole wheat bread crumbled, endive, carrots, plus vitamin supplements.

Finches, Lovebirds

Finches. Seed eaters: Small finch mix, millet, thistle, canary, rape, pound cake. Insectivorous (Melbas, Auroras, Violet-ears, Cordon Bleus, etc.): Add a couple of mealworms daily (too many mealworms may lead to liver problems) or use Insectivorous Mixture with high protein content. Both types need additional calcium in the form of powdered calcium, cuttlebone, crushed eggshells and grit.

Some breeders advocate feeding fresh food twice a day at the exact same time each day. Offer ground up vegetables, fresh corn, fruits, monkey biscuit. (Use a variety whatever is available: Carrots, endive, celery, onions, spinach, whole wheat, rye, pumpernickel, parmesan cheese, etc.). Also egg yolk and peanut butter in the a.m. Same diet, whether breeding or not.

Fruit and Nectar Eaters (Hummingbirds, Lorikeets, and Toucans). As a guide only, these birds need a diet consisting of properly stored commercial or homemade nectars. Homemade formula: 15 to 18 monkey biscuits, 1 medium apple, and 1/2 cup molasses blended with enough water (3 cups approximately) to produce a cake batter consistency- These soft, moist foods spoil rapidly and should be fed twice daily.

Lovebirds. Seeds: Sunflower, parakeet mix, canary Mix, as described. Fresh foods: Apples, endive, corn on the cob, whole wheat bread, car-rots, spinach. Protein supplement: Monkey biscuit, egg, cheese.

Calcium supplement: Cuttlebone, oyster shell. Vitamin supplement: May want to use during times of stress or molt. Increase amount of soft food available during laying and feeding of young.

Macaws. Psittacine diet as previously described for cockatoos, using monkey biscuits.

Parakeets to Eagles

Parakeets (Budgerigars). Fifty percent canary seed mix, 5 percent oats, 45 percent mixed millets, greens, monkey biscuit, cuttlebone, small seed sprouts, corn, carrot, and cheese, or as described for canaries.

Australian Parakeets.

Psittacine diet as described for cockatoos; canary and parakeet mix, and wild seedling grasses.

Parrots (African Greys and Amazons). Psittacine diet as described for cockatoos along with canary and parakeet mix, occasionally oranges, meat, and egg.

Pigeons and Doves.

Fresh commercial pigeon pellets available at many feed stores. Pelleted turkey or chicken feed, beans, peas, and mixed grains plus vitamin/ mineral supplements.

Birds make fun pets. However, species such as the macaw are very demanding while others like parakeets require relatively little care. It's a good idea to consider your own lifestyle and your family's before choosing a bird.

Raptors (Falcons, Hawks, Other Birds of Prey). These are flesh eaters in the wild but the digestive tracts of the rodents and birds they eat also contain vegetable matter.

Some of the foods commonly fed to these birds include chicken necks, baby chicks, small rodents, their complete internal organs, and a vitamin mineral supplement that includes calcium, vitamin A, D3, and B complex. They start accepting food with talons instead of their beak at about 4 weeks of age.

Note that the captive maintenance of raptors is strictly legislated. Their safe care requires great skill and caution.