Nutrition

Health & Diet

A parrots diet consists of many things that they eat, many people think they eat only seeds and that's not the case at all.  They require a well balanced diet just like us. I've listed below what to give your feathered friends, don't be shy when it comes to vegetables & fruit. If your parrot doesn't seem to like them, keep offering them for at least a month or so.  Eventually they may start munching on the veggies or fruit.  Some parrots may take an interest to eating if they think you like it, eat food items in front of your bird and it will often promote them on trying it.  Make it look like it is so yummy that they can't resist on trying it, sometimes it works sometimes it doesn't.  Don't let your parrot get stuck on liking just one or two favorite things, the more you can get them to like the better off they will be health wise. 

A varied diet largely made up of live foods will give you the healthiest bird. By live foods I mean vegetables, fruits, and whole grains.  Dead foods are foods that don't spoil quickly (i.e. packaged seeds & nuts).  Some parrots may require more nuts in their diet where other parrots may not need them in the diet as much.  Some nuts are more fattening to certain birds and not to other birds. 

Vegetables: Carrots (cooked slightly for better assimilation of beta carotene), string beans, corn, squash, peas, broccoli, zucchini, snow peas, sunflower sprouts, pea shoots, sprouted seeds and beans (excellent for protein) are all favorites. If your bird is reluctant to try these things, try sprouting their seed mix. It will be familiar to them and seeds are much healthier when sprouting (lower in fat, higher in amino acids for instance).

Fruits: High in sugar, don't substitute fruit for vegetables.  Vegetables always should make up the largest portion of the diet. Fruits do not really need to make up a significant part of the diet. Grapes are relished by most parrots.  I wash my strawberries and other fruit in just clear running water and have never had a problem.  Most parrots like strawberries.  Blue Berries are good and provide the much needed antioxidants.  Apples are loved by most birds, wash well give them with or without the skin.  Oranges are great too, although I notice some of my birds are not that crazy about oranges. Most any fruit is good for them, if they like it and will eat it then they will get a wide variety.  Parrots tend to have their favorite food items just like people do.

Grains: You can sprout many grains at home. Millet and quinoa are two nice grains to sprout. Also, cooked brown rice and cooked quinoa are relished by many parrots. Quinoa is a South American grain so parrots from this region probably ate it in the wild.  Any food you can duplicate from their natural environment is an excellent choice.  You can also purchase a Soak and Cook bean mixture made for birds and they love it.  Grains do not need to be a large portion of the diet.  Pellets would fall into the category of grains as pellet consist most of corn. 

Seeds: Get a good, fresh seed mix. If you aren't sure it's good and fresh, try sprouting it. If the seeds don't sprout in a few days, the seeds are dead. They have no nutritional value. Give either a daily supply of seeds or a couple times a week, but never so much that the birds ignore their pellets, veggies or fruit. Let you bird have access to seeds or pellets at all times because they don't spoil and can be left in the cage all day. There are many brand name seeds on the market.  Find a type that has no sunflower or very little in the mix.  Sunflower seeds are very fattening to parrots.  Give a seed mix to your parrots maybe 2-3 times a week, they seem to always prefer it over pellets and other things, they tend to pick out their favorite items in the seed mix which are sometimes not the more nutritional part in the mix.  They may leave behind the better and more nutritionally part behind and you may be dumping it out, you can not make them eat what they leave behind unless that all there is and some parrots will starve to death before they will eat something that they don't like.  This can vary from bird to bird, what one bird will eat the other may not.

Pellets: There are many pellet types on the market.   I personally use ROUDYBUSH PELLETS.  To name a couple of others there are Kaytee plain, Exact Rainbow pellets, Zupreem Avian Maintenance Fruit Blend & so many others.  There are other brands on the market besides these ones that I mentioned. Birds should still have other things in their diet besides pellets.  Birds that are not use to eating pellets have to be converted on to them and at first may not like them but keep on offering them as you give them less and less of whatever else you have been giving them. We feed our parrots a large variety because when they leave our care we have no idea what their new owner will be feeding them, so variety is a good thing. 

Food Prep Use the same precautions you use for your human family members, when serving  raw or cooked  fresh fruits & veggies.  You can also feed small amounts of cooked chicken to your parrot, keep in mind things such as, Salmonella, Escherichia coli, Listeria, and other food-borne pathogens can and do affect parrots.   Wash fruit or veggies well and use a clean area to prepare fruit or veggies. If I think food items are spoiled then I don't offer it to my parrots, if it doesn't look appealing to me then I feel its not good enough for my birds, although many times a bird would probably it it any way but I would not want my bird to get sick.

People Food: Pasta, whole wheat breads, bits of very well cooked chicken, and various other "people foods" are fine as long as they are not the majority of the diet.  Don't feed the bird food from your mouth and don't bite off a piece for them. There's too much bacteria in your mouth and you can make your bird sick.  Make sure chicken is very well cooked and don't leave any food like this in the cage for more than an hour. My parrots love chicken and steak and a little bit is okay, just make sure it is cooked well.
Keep away from packaged foods like canned foods, prepackaged boxed dinner meals as they often retain too many chemicals and salts and such items that are not good for a parrot and they are not actually that healthy for you either. AVACADOS ARE POISON!!!!!  CHOCOLATE TOO!!! to many parrots, particularly African species.  To avoid confusion, don't feed it to any of your birds.
(Don't even try to see if your bird can tolerate eating it, as the bird could get sick or can result in death. Its one thing I've never attempted to give to my birds and never will).Chocolate is also toxic

Junk Food:  Parrots seem to love junk food but is bad for them,  Many parrots cannot excrete large amounts of salt efficiently, so the potato chips and french fries are not a good idea.  Same thing for table foods you've added salt to.   A tiny crumb from a muffins, cookie, or other fatty baked goods once in awhile might be okay, but don't get your parrot use to these treats. You want to encourage them to eat the best foods.  Sugar in general is not good for parrots as it can cause hyperactivity.

Any food or drink containing theobromine is forbidden. Chocolate, cocoa, coffee, and tea contain theobromine, which can cause over excitability, cardiopathy, and death. Absolutely positively do NOT give your bird wine, beer, or other alcoholic beverages. Their livers cannot handle it. It is not funny to see a bird drunk and anyone who thinks it is should find their birds a more appropriate home. Birds have died from too much alcohol.

TEACHING YOUR PARROT TO TALK!!!!!!!!!!!

First of all, it's important to understand what it takes for a bird to talk...

Birds do not have a larynx, or vocal chords. This is what enables you and I to speak. In order for a bird to enunciate human sounds, they must learn to control the movement of the muscles in the throat to manipulate the movement of air well enough to reproduce tones and sounds. Sound complicated? It is.

So don't be discouraged when your Quaker doesn't say, "Thanks for picking me from the clutch...", when you bring him home that first day. Learning to accurately reproduce human spaech takes time, and depends on the birds particular inherent physical capabilities, as well as their...

Environmental Motivation

If you have taken time to thoroughly research this website, your heart is in the right place. Follow up by reading some of the GREAT booksout there on the market today about parrots . The more knowledge you have about Quaker behavior, the more you can stimulate and bond with your Quaker. The more bonded and stimulated your Quaker is, the greater his desire to communicate with you. That is why parrots talk. Mimicing is a birds natural way of communicating with its flockmates. Every day you hear wild birds calling to one another. This is the basis on which we motivate our birds to speak to us.

So, do tapes work?

Well, is your parrot bonded to a tape? Probably not. Although birds do most often learn to speak the words and phrases we use most frequently, the repetition is based upon the fact that the words are uttered often as a part of the birds emotional environment.

Now, this is not to say that belting out "Jingle Bells" to your Quaker will motivate him to sing it in rounds. Parrots usually begin speaking with simple one syllable words like "What" and "Good". This is because, quite simply, they're easier. Birds also seem to love words that end with 'eeeeeeee' sounds like "pretty" and "yummy". Some words attract their ear, some are just easier to reproduce. However, rest assured, once your parrot is motivated to speak to you, and gets a big response for doing so, new words are just around the corner.

Quakers usually begin talking between 3-6 months of age. One of the most frequently first reproduced human sounds is kissing. SMOOCH-SMOOCH-SMOOCH. Think how many hundred times they probably hear it the week we bring them home! Quakers will often practice their human sounds at low volume and often their early attempts will be misconstrued as 'noise'. Don't discourage your parrot from noise making if you want a well enunciated parrot later on. Practice makes perfect!

There is some obvious (to me at least) truth to the fact that birds speak more frequently and at louder volume in their cages and when you are out of sight. Behavioral experts call this 'barrier frustration'. I call it "desperation motivation', same thing. In the wild, parrots constantly call out to their flockmates to establish location and territory against other species of bird. When you leave your parrots sight, instinct has it that he will call to you. If you respond, odds are he will too. You leave the room...

Quaker: "Eeeekk", loosely translated as, "Where are you?"
You: "Watcha doin'?"
Quaker: "Aarkk", loosely translated, "Just checkin'"

If you respond to your bird each time he calls to you in this manner you are teaching him some very important lessons. First off, vocalization gets results. Secondly, you understand what he's saying to you. This is a very important motivation for acquiring human speech. Keep loving your Quaker, stimulating your Quaker, and talking to your Quaker. People who talk have birds that talk.

Back to those physical attributes...

African Grays are by far the best talkers in the bird kingdom. Quakers have been known to have vocabularies of up to hundreds of words, most used appropriately from time to time, but their physical capabilites do not allow them the same clarity as Grays. When speaking to your Quaker, speak as clearly and plainly as you can. Talking baby talk will only further distort the birds imitation of the sound, sometime rendering it useless.