Turning Your Parrots Diet Into An Healthy Process

Your parrots diet must contain the right foods, or else your parrots will not be as healthy as possible. If the birds diet contains certain foods, they can die as a result. This makes it especially important to know what foods to include and excludes in your parrots diet.

If a parrot's diet contains good, healthy foods, many of the larger species can live to be 100 years of age or more. Even small parrots such as cockatiels will live much longer than expect. When psittacine birds were first kept as pet, people thought their life expectancy was short, only 10 years or so. This was because the bird diet being offered did not contain the nutrients required for the parrot to thrive.

Seven Deadly Parrots Diet Foods

While there are many good things to include in a parrot diet, there are a few items people consume which can actually kill your feathered friend. These foods, known as the "seven deadly foods", are avocado, chocolate, alcohol, seeds of any fruit, raw meat, uncooked eggs, and any food which may have mold or may be spoiled (including bird seed). There is some debate over other foods such as garlic, but most parrots will simply not eat a clove of garlic and the tiny amount used as seasoning in a human food that a parrot might eat is insufficient to cause any hard.

Parrot Diet Items You Should Limit

There are some foods which people eat that a parrot can safely consume a tiny bit of without any problem, but which should be limited in the parrot diet. In large quantities, these foods can harm your bird's health. You may note these are also foods that a human should not eat in large amounts for their own health, too.

Any food which is high in fat must be limited. Wild parrots diets include very little fat. Think of your parrot diet much as you would the diet of a three year old child. A child could have a few potato chips even though they are high in fact, but you would limit the quantity. In a parrot's diet, you could allow a bite or even two from the edge of one single potato chip once in a while. Just do not let it become a habit so that every single day the parrot expects and gets potato chips. The golden adage "everything in moderation" is a good guideline to follow about parrot diet items to limit. Examples of foods in this group include: potato chips, fried foods, buttered vegetables or bread, ice cream, and cake or cookies.

Salt much also be limited in a parrot's diet. Health-conscious humans also tend to limit their own salt intake. Thinking of the size of a parrot's body compared to your own, you can easily see why a tiny quantity of salt goes a long, long way. When preparing family meals, remove some vegetables prior to adding salt; this way your feathered friend can enjoy these healthy foods safely. Items which are too salty for inclusion in the bird diet include: salted chips, nuts with salt, fruits or vegetables prepared with added salt, and some packaged foods such as entrees for the microwave. Also included are cured or aged meats such as bacon or ham, and popcorn if salt or butter has been added.

Your parrot diet choices should also limit foods which are high in sugar. Parrots can easily become little junk food junkies and want to gorge on sweets if permitted. While it is perfectly safe to permit a bird's diet to include a taste -- meaning one bite or two -- of a sweet treat, you must limit how much your parrot consumes to very small amounts. Foods in this category include: candy, sugar-sweetened juices, sweetened soft drinks, many sugary cereals, cakes, cookies, and ice cream.

Good Parrot Diet Choices

You may wonder what foods are good to include in your parrot diet. The answer is, basically, everything not listed above! A bird diet should include lots of different foods in order to ensure that a wide range of vitamins and nutrients are consumed. The more choices your parrot diet includes, the better health your parrot will enjoy and the longer life span your companion parrot can expect.

Some of the good foods for parrots' diets that are really great for parrots are also the foods which are great for health-conscious humans. Vegetables, either raw or lightly cooked are healthy choices. Bits of pasta, cheese, rice, mashed potatoes or boiled potatoes, well-cooked eggs, and bits of well-done meats, poultry, or fish add variety to a bird diet. In fact, many parrots love to chew on a bone from cooked meat and even dig the marrow from the inside of the bone. Let your parrot's diet include lots of healthy foods.

Article Source: http://www.articlemonk.com

About the author: Mississippi 'Bird Lady' finally exposes her tested bird diet, screaming and feather plucking techniques to easily get a happy, sociable and healthy parrot in your home.
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