11/12/2025
let's talk ✨️ NUTRITION ✨️
There's a big misconception in bird owners, is that birds only eat seeds. Especially the ones who have bought a bird on a whim, which there is nothing wrong with that if you're open to educating and learning about the proper care for parrots any size.
We're learning more now that seeds is kind of like fast food, if you ate McDonald's every day of your life, would you live a long, healthy life? Most likely not, you'd have fatty kidney, liver disease, malnutrition, poor skin, obesity and probably more.
So, while seeds are easy and readily available, they're not necessarily healthy, kinda like fast food.
In the wild, parrots would chew branches, leaves, unripe fruit, fresh new shoots of grass, flowers, some vegetables and sometimes eggs or meat. So, what's the best way to mimic this in captivity?
Feeding an array of herbs, spices, sprouts, fruits and vegetables is the easiest way to replicate this. Every day, my birds get what I call a "fine chop", and a "rough chop". Fine chop is put through a food processor and cut finely, this is to encourage tasting and eating all foods, even if they don't really like it. Rough chop is usually some whole fruits, vegetables or roughly chopped of their favourite things, this encourages foot holding, balancing, and coordination. Then we alternate, between sprouts, soaking seeds, pellets, and a dried herb mix.
In my opinion pellets aren't a whole diet, so should be fed sparingly with a switch of other foods available. I do usually make out pellets wet and mushy, I add coconut oil, The Good Oil, h**p seed oil, and flaxseed oil, again, I alternate oils and only add a small amount for an added boost of vitamins.
Another thing that should be given sparingly is ripe fruit, small amounts, unripe is best. In the wild, it's a competition on who can get to the fruit first, and usually by the time it's ripe, there's none left. So, my mix is 80% vegetables and 20% fruit in my mix. High sugar is great for wild birds who have the space and energy to burn, but captive birds aren't often flying long distances or for long periods.
We do love helping educate, so please, share, follow and come to any of our markets.
