Healthy Diets for Parrots
Owning a pet parrot can be an absolute joy, but you want to be sure that you give her a healthy diet to ensure a long and happy life. Experts agree that a formulated diet along with other supplements is best for a parrot.
Let’s take a look at some important foods for your parrot’s diet.
Seeds
All birds, not just parrots, given a diet based wholly on seeds may miss out on many key nutrients. Seed certainly does have its place in avian diets , but birds can be picky, and they may not eat all of the healthy seeds in the lot.
Look at seeds a bit like junk food; they are loved but maybe not the healthiest food out there. Birds should really only be given seed for about 25% of their diet.
Formulated Diets
As research began to tell us that parrots were suffering from nutritionally deficiencies, different companies began to produce a pellet diet for them. These pellets were made from seeds, grains, veggies, and fruits that are fortified with vitamins.
These provide more of a balanced diet and should be about 50 to 75 % of your parrot’s diet. Formulated pellets come in a variety of shapes, from crumbles up to whole chunks.
Veggies
Fresh veggies are an essential to your parrot’s diet. However, not all vegetables carry to the same nutrients.
Most dark yellow and leafy greens are great choice. Offer veggies in a variety for you birds to try. They can be chopped or whole, cooked or raw.
If you hang vegetables from the side of your bird’s cage or offer them in chunks for the bird to pick up, you should be successful. Here are some vegetables your parrot is sure to love. It’s important to never give your parrot avacado.
- parsley
- carrots
- collards
- kale
- turnip greens,
- chard
- mustard greens
- dandelion greens
- beet greens
- sweat popatoes
- green beans
- green, yellow or red pepper
- broccoli
- sugar snap peas
- cauliflower
- eggplant
- squash
- corn
- lettuce
- cucumber
Fruits
Parrots love fruit and will overindulge so be sure to limit these to small portions. Many of the deeply colored fruits are very nutritious and it’s always good to try to feed parots fruits that they would be exposed to in the wild.
Be sure to remove the pits and seeds as they can be dangerous. Here is a list of fruits your bird will love:
- pomegranates
- mango
- pineapple
- berries
- papaya
- kiwi
- cranberries
- bananas
- pineapple
- apricots
- cantaloupe
- peaches
- tangerienes
- oranges
- grapefruit
- cherries
- apples
- pears
- grapes