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Pellets
Jan 26, 2021 6:15:24 GMT
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mona likes this
Post by Morgan on Jan 26, 2021 6:15:24 GMT
I also agree with what Jason Crean has to say about eating a whole food diet. I mean, this is how I eat most of the time and I find nutrition in general fascinating. It is a quickly evolving, constantly changing science that is pretty hard to substantiate a lot of the time, since plants are living things and may contain different nutrients individually depending on how and where they were grown, etc. but I still read and listen and try not to judge when things do change - because we are always learning more and correcting what we used to think we knew, which may have been wrong! Ex: fats don’t make you fat, sugars do! So now do we stop eating carbs altogether or...? A clean keto diet honestly works best for me, but may not for others. So many people stop listening because of these issues and I’ve heard scientists of other professions call nutritionists quacks and say it isn’t even a real science... 😕 Anyway...
Unfortunately Dr. Cream says himself that when asked about birds’ dietary needs there are no easy answers, and that there is no such thing as a complete diet (which I believe Carolyn has also said at the beginning of her article), and that feeding foods with the most bio available nutrients is what is important. Thais actually aligns with what Carolyn thinks (if they could each see past their differences I suppose), but she does believe that pellets are perhaps a more bio available source of the main nutrients fat, protein, and carbs - since they are heated (unlike most dog food, not at extreme temperatures) and therefore made more easily digestible - just like humans cooking food for the same purposes. Obviously a birds gut is different from a humans, but humans probably had a different gut (we definitely had different teeth) before we started cooking too perhaps.
I can’t copy and paste from his article, but Dr. Crean goes on to talk about the benefits of different whole foods and how he advises a whole food diet for many zoo’s animals. Which is all wonderful, but what is his actual diet then for a Budgerigar in a zoo? If he would like to share some recipes that will provide my birds with complete nutrition so I know they aren’t missing anything that would be great, but so far I’m still left guessing here.
I can’t speak for Carolyn’s personality or whatever issues she and Dr. Crean have with one another, but I don’t think villiainizing her is really fair when I honestly think they both agree about some fundamentals about bird nutrition - although they disagree about the BEST way to get that nutrition into the birds.
I think they both have fair points, and would just like to point out that, if you read her entire article about pellets, Carolyn does not claim that you should feed your birds a diet of 100%, 80%, 50%, or even 30% pellets. She shares what other experts in avian nutrition have said, as well as veterinarians, which for small birds may be 30-50% pellets, but 50-70% for larger birds, with the exception of certain species like Eclectus which do not do well on pellets at all.
I didn’t find her article to be so extreme as saying you shouldn’t feed your bird fresh foods, just that pellets will help you get closer to your goal of providing balanced nutrition to your birds so they don’t end up with deficiencies.
For example:
“No matter how carefully you balance all the nutrients, your work may be undone if the bird can pick and choose. Fortunately mash recipes that aim for fairly complete nutrition and eliminate the opportunity to pick and choose are available for people who want to do it themselves, such as the ones on the Feeding Feathers group on Facebook. It's hard to meet some of the vitamin and mineral requirements even with a well-planned recipe, but a good recipe will bring you closer to the goal than a random assortment of healthy foods will. Mash and chop are somewhat similar but there's a very important difference: mash aims for as much nutritional completeness as possible and chop does not. Mash is focused on the recipe not the presentation - the combination of foods is what matters, and the ingredients don't have to be mashed up. Chop is a presentation style, not a recipe.
Picking and choosing is the very essence of foraging of course, so be sure to include some items in the diet that let your bird exercise its freedom of choice.
Studies show that homemade diets often fall short in several major nutrients; there's more on this later in the article. So it's wise to include some pellets in your bird's diet to help insure that all the nutritional bases are covered, and also to aim for a healthy balance in the non-pellet part of your bird's diet.
Beaks to Barks has a nice article on the advantages and pitfalls of pellets, along with some discussion of raw diets.”
and
“ Using pellets
Most pellet companies will tell you to feed a diet of 80% pellets, and some will go as high as 100%. But they obviously have a financial interest in promoting high levels of pellet consumption, and many well-informed sources believe that a lower level of consumption is preferable. In theory, these pellets are formulated to meet 100% of the nutritional need when fed as 80% of the diet. But they provide more than the minimum recommended amount for most nutrients (see the charts at the bottom of the article), so a lower percentage will also go quite a long way toward meeting the minimum requirement. The recommended amount for calcium is apparently based on meeting the requirements for egg laying, and an adult bird at maintenance can get by with less (see Calcium article).
An 80% consumption level appears to be safe for most birds although higher levels have been linked to health problems (especially kidney disease) in some individuals. The problems will often resolve if pellets are discontinued for a while then reintroduced a lower level of consumption (Clinical Avian Medicine Chapter 16). It appears that high levels of vitamin A and D3 in pellets may have caused some issues in the earliest pellets, but this problem was corrected several decades ago (Harrisons). Some individual birds are sensitive to pellets and don't tolerate them well, possibly due to an allergy to one of the ingredients. Eclectus parrots in particular tend to develop problems with toe tapping and wing flipping on a pellet diet. In some cases the problem can be solved by switching to a different brand, and in other cases the solution is to stop using pellets.”
So frankly, I agree with both of them, and Carolyn’s information is still incredibly useful to me and I am grateful to her for providing the sources and scientific data to back up what she has to say. I don’t know what she is like in person, but as far as what she has written, I thought she was pretty fair. Certainly she is promoting pellets, but I didn’t feel that she was disapproving fresh foods while doing so while I was reading her article.
In fact, I came to the conclusion that feeding a diet of 30-50% pellets is probably pretty good for my small birds, and I have been feeding about 25% Harrison’s already, and 25% TOP’s (which isn’t an extruded pellet so kinda doesn’t even count, it’s more like a dried veggie, with the exception of some rice and millet in there), but they REALLY don’t like the TOP’s much, so I have been slowly reducing it to only about 5-10% so it doesn’t just go to waste. So I was thinking of getting a variety of pellets (without dyes or colors still, specifically Mazuri and Caitec Oven Fresh) to keep in separate dishes (as well as Harrison’s) around the bird room for them to forage and choose (still in limited quantities so they can’t just eat all of one pellet and none of the others) as well as continuing to feed fresh veggies, egg, sprouted seed, etc. She does talk a lot about the importance of variety and foraging as well. I was also thinking of getting Lafeber’s nutriberries just as foraging treats only, because they have a bit of sugar.
I don’t know if you’ve actually read her article through yourself or only heard bad things about her from others? If you think anything she has said is pretty much just untrue I would love to know, because I certainly could have overlooked something. And sorry if anything comes across as being argumentative or anything, I really do think that feeding natural is great if you can actually balance all the nutrients for your birds. I don’t have confidence that I can at the moment, and Carolyn’s article did just make me feel a bit better about using pellets. I’m not saying they are ideal, but also it’s not like you have to feed a diet of 80% pellets either. I have always been of the opinion that variety is key - but not just a random variety. And I do love discussion, I’m not just trying to argue or anything. I stick around on this forum for the discussion because I am always learning something new here!
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Post by Hezz on Jan 26, 2021 6:57:56 GMT
Of course there is no “complete” diet; not even for humans as all our needs are so diverse and that has been studied to death. Pet birds in general are a long way down the list of what gets attention. It was the “holy grail of information on pellets” comment that made me go looking for more on the author of the article. The whole pellet debate is not something I am interested in. I like my food as fresh as possible and like my birds’ to be the same. End of story.
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Pellets
Jan 26, 2021 7:17:06 GMT
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mona likes this
Post by Morgan on Jan 26, 2021 7:17:06 GMT
Well I guess there is no discussion then, to each their own. I find the information useful. Perhaps pellets are not required at all, but at least I now know that a diet of 30% should suffice (up to 50% if I have to due to being too busy in the future, right now I do seems to have plenty of time), and I don’t have to worry if I’m feeding enough. Perhaps too much would be the worry still, so I do wonder how companion parrots who are fed Harrison’s High Potency per the package instructions fare... it seems to do them well as far I have heard - I haven’t heard any real complaints. Perhaps any of these diets is simply better than how we used to feed our birds and only time and more research will tell...
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Dec 18, 2020 18:11:40 GMT
daliaajbudgie
Brand New Budgie
Please come back home Zeytoon </3
Posts: 25
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Post by daliaajbudgie on Jan 26, 2021 11:24:20 GMT
Trying mine on Zupreem natural pellets , tried veg .......no go, they all like coriander and basil though Keep trying, I nearly gave up until I started mixing Harrison's pellets with homemade chop (mix of their fav vegetables chopped up in very small pieces) and some Trill seeds. They finish off the bowl entirely! I also definitely noticed a change in their energy when switching to pellets!
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Pellets
Jan 26, 2021 17:35:05 GMT
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Post by Morgan on Jan 26, 2021 17:35:05 GMT
daliaajbudgie - I noticed that too! I also notice pretty significantly when I don’t take my own supplements... My energy will be low and my mood not so cheery. My blood work came back as low in Vitamin D and Magnesium (even though I am outside often, and this was in SoCal during the summer), so I take a D3+K and complete Magnesium supplement (BiOptimizers - most magnesium supplements only contain one type of magnesium, which might be fine, but I wanted to try something different), and I take a few other things daily: a probiotic, B complex, and krill oil. I should also take calcium, just don’t have it at the moment. I also drink a powdered green drink daily (called Amazing Grass Green Superfood - this one tastes good just in water), and try to make a smoothie daily with another one (called Green Vibrance, something like 125 different whole plant ingredients), just to make sure that I am getting enough veggies myself. So I suppose I’m not against supplements or veggie powders or even fortified foods for myself. Also these powders don’t have anything in them that would be harmful to a budgie, so I have sprinkled the tiniest amount on their egg or soaked seeds or whatever. My version of baking veggies into birdie bread to get them to eat more. Doing regular bloodwork on a budgie is apparently not recommended because they have so little, but I suppose if I ever have a larger parrot someday I could have that done to see if they were lacking or getting too much of anything on a purely whole food diet for a few months, vs supplementing with a pellet diet for a few months, and be able to balance things out more confidently with more information. But even things like dry egg food and mineral grits usually have additional supplements added to them. I haven’t been able to find a dry egg food without sugar in it either, but mine love eggs so I also didn’t look too hard. Just a few more thoughts I had overnight.
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Pellets
Feb 7, 2021 5:42:11 GMT
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Post by Morgan on Feb 7, 2021 5:42:11 GMT
Ok, so in addition to feeding pellets, is it ok to use other high quality supplements, such as those made by the Bird Care Company (BCC)?
For those who don’t know them, the BCC makes a supplement called Guardian Angel (GA), which can be used on food or in water when a bird is starting to feel unwell, or perhaps is already fairly sick, in order to prevent having to use antibiotics at all (hopefully).
It seems to have raving fans who believe it has truly saved their birds’ lives, and I used it on my first budgie Pig after her course of Doxycycline for a respiratory illness. She had recovered, but she still was pretty low in energy. To make a very long story very short, after a terrible non-avian vet experience (because I had moved) I ended up purchasing Guardian Angel with some reservations, but thinking it probably couldn’t hurt at this point.
Pig perked up well enough that I finally thought I could get her some friends without worrying excessively about her health or about the new budgies potentially becoming sick too! I went a little crazy and also purchased CalciBoost as emergency calcium in case Pig ever decided to lay an egg, and Flourish, which is an herbal formula to help boost the immune system to be used regularly. I eventually purchased Feather-Up (supplements for molting birds) and Energise (electrolytes for before and after travel or other stressful events) too, but I don’t think I will be replacing those when they run out because the GA and Flourish pretty much cover all those bases already.
Recently on another thread we were talking about vitamins for molting birds, and I mentioned I had been using the GA in half doses for my molting birds since my Feather-Up had run out, and because the ingredients are basically the same as the GA anyway, but in lesser amounts. There was some confusion about how Guardian Angel works exactly, and if it is ok to use for this purpose, so I decided to email the Bird Care Company a few of my questions.
For clarity, I had asked about:
1) How long to give Guardian Angel if a bird actually appears sick, 2) Can I use GA at half the dose for molting, or would they recommend a lesser dose, or not at all, 3) Their response to my mentioning that the ingredients look the same as their molting formula called “Feather Up”, just in lesser amounts, 4) If I can use the GA for a molting bird, do I need to separate that bird from the rest of the flock? Is there any detriment to using GA for a healthy bird?, 5) Many people believe GA should be used as you would an antibiotic, and that using GA regularly for other purposes will make it less effective for if/when the bird actually becomes sick - Is this true? 6) I have also used Flourish before at twice a week but no longer have any on hand (and I described my birds’ overall diet including 30-50% pellets daily) - Can Flourish be used along with a pelleted diet, and/or at the same time as GA, or is it just overkill?, 7) I have a long drive coming up soon, so I asked about their product called Energise which contains electrolytes plus Vit C, for use before stressful events such as travel (and shows for show birds). I asked if using Flourish was enough because it also contains Vitamin C (and an herbal formula for immune support) but not the electrolyte ingredients in Energise. 8) I asked if a bird could overdose on Vit C, relating to the previous question. It is not fat soluble so I didn’t think so, but... 9) I have their CalciBoost on hand in case one of my hens decides to start laying, so I also asked if adding extra calcium to my birds’ diet is necessary (while non-breeding), given that I am using up to 50% pellets and my birds also have mineral blocks available to them.
Here are the answers:
“Thank you for your e-mail. Here are the answers to your questions:
1) Yes you are correct in saying that if a bird is unwell, you would give the Guardian Angel daily for at least 2 weeks to make sure that the bird is well again. 2) If your bird is moulting, then yes give the Guardian Angel at full dose all the way through the moult. It will help with the stress side of things. 3) I would still give the Feather-Up and CalciBoost at the same as the Guardian Angel, as all 3 do different things when the bird is moulting, even if the ingredients look like they are similar. 4) There is no problem in giving Guardian Angel to a bird that looks fit and well. Especially if you have some birds in the flock that look a little unwell, it will reduce the risk of the healthy birds coming down with the same problem. You only need to give it once or twice a week. 5) Guardian Angel is totally different to antibiotics. Guardian Angel will help to build up the immune system, so then you shouldn't need to use antibiotics. Using nutritional products will also make sure that the birds are healthy and stay healthy, so there is room for both Guardian Angel and vitamins/minerals in the diet. 6) Yes you can give Guardian Angel and Flourish together with no problems. If you wanted to, you could increase the Flourish to daily, but if you are happy with giving it twice a week, then that is fine too. 7) I would actually give the Guardian Angel before travelling. It contains the Energize electrolytes, as well as the probiotics to help with gut function and the immune support to help with general health. There is no problem in giving the Flourish as well if you need to. 8) Birds are very good at getting rid of nutrients that they do not need, so you can't overdose on our products, unless you are giving 10 times our recommended dose over a long period of time, which I am sure that you are not. 9) CalciBoost isn't just a calcium supplement, it also helps to regulate how calcium works within the body. So by giving it just once a week will benefit the birds. You will find that the pellets that you give may have calcium in it, but it is the type of calcium that you will find in cuttle bone and grit, birds need to consume a huge amount of it, to get just a little in the body.
You are doing the right thing by giving a great varied diet. Just eating a biscuit all day long can become quite boring for any person, let alone a parrot. We always say to try and give a diet which is fairly much the same as what they would have in the wild. You are also providing stimulation for your birds by giving different textures, shapes and sizes, which is what they need for a good healthy life. With regard to the supplements, as long as you are following our dosage rates, then you can't go wrong. Most of our products are designed to be used together, so if you are ever not sure about which ones, then please get in touch. We are always happy to help.
I hope that this has put your mind at rest.
Best regards,
Charlotte Doheny, Senior Advisor & Business Development Executive, The Birdcare Company, DrS, CROCdoc/Calinnova Ltd, Leading The Way- Naturally”
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Pellets
Feb 7, 2021 6:22:03 GMT
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Post by Morgan on Feb 7, 2021 6:22:03 GMT
So, I think we can keep in mind that they’re still selling a product. But, I don’t think the body would build “immunity” to vitamins and minerals like a bacteria would to an antibiotic. The way I understand it, with taking supplements myself anyway, is that the body uses what it needs and gets rid of the excess - through the kidneys. So I suppose if seriously overdosing on vitamins the kidneys could be overloaded, but I don’t think it would hurt them to have a little extra help during a molt. So far I have been using GA at half dosage on their boiled egg 2-3x a week during their molts, and I haven’t had any experiences with my birds ever feeling under the weather during their molt. Everyone’s been super chipper and playful and energized since I started feeding pellets again, and that change was pretty obvious. But the GA could be overkill. So... I think I will stop using the GA for a while to see if I notice any difference in their demeanor and/or energy levels. Topsie and Chopper (my two youngest, about 7-8mo) are somewhere about halfway through their first molts, and Goat (he’s over a year now) is just starting to molt his head feathers again. And I’ll update with my findings.
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Post by Morgan on Apr 1, 2021 6:11:59 GMT
A post just to say that I edited my second post in this thread for some clarity
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Post by Morgan on Apr 1, 2021 6:20:24 GMT
Also, I did ask a few more questions of the bird care company for clarity, and they got back to me immediately, but I was busy and forgot to update further. So here ya'll go, if anyone is still curious "Thank you for coming back to me. Here are the answers, these were all written by my Technical Director, Malcolm: There are a number of things that we think make our products better than most others in the marketplace: Though they originated from a veterinary background The Birdcare Company products have constantly evolved to solve the problems of bird breeders. Making the healthy even healthier and matching their nutritional requirements to their seasonal requirements sets BCC apart from those focussed narrowly on sickness avoidance. BCC is brilliant at listening to and working with its customers to better understand the needs of the birds and their owners. We won an award for that in 2014. A good example of this is understanding the importance of magnesium to birds on seed or pellet based diets. This was highlighted to us when we were sorting out an eclectus parrot being treated by an eminent bird vet in Florida whose own feed product failed this bird. Even from the UK we were able to fix the bird first and then, when we switch from a treatment regime to a maintenance regime and the bird relapsed we were able to determine the cause. That single case caused us to re-evaluate our magnesium levels in all of our products. The vet involved still doesn’t add magnesium to his pellets 15 years on. We do work very closely with key bird vets – such as helping them to ship birds like Ostriches and flamingos from the UK to New Zealand with no losses. We have an excellent track record of evaluating ingredients offered for agricultural animals and determining their value in cage birds. So we were only the second UK company to use the key ingredient in Guardian Angel in any animal feed/supplement. That was the key to the NZ shipments hinted at above. By far the majority of these ingredients we reject!!! So we won’t follow the latest fashion in nutrition. An example of the innovative things we have adopted are our main anti-oxidant package – developed by a paediatrician at Guys Hospital, London for premature babies. Very different from the usual Vit C, Vit E and selenium stuff. We actually understand how to use Chelated calcium (see below for more on that nutrient). That is mostly because we are the only people in the world to have actually carried out blood trials using it (in horses). I don’t mind you asking but I will only partially answer. There are certain nutrients required for rapid cell replication. If they run out, healing and immune responses are limited. Make sure there are plenty, and white blood cells (the immune system’s Rapid Reaction Force) work as nature intended. Those are the special nutrients we use. You can’t achieve this with vits and mins whatever the blend. The relative absorption of Chelated calcium is completely irrelevant because chelated calcium (unlike its other mineral cousins) mostly remains intact in the bloodstream and body fluids. It does not give up its calcium ions. What it seems to do (send me a few million dollars and I will either finance the research or, more likely, retire to the Carribean), is get a cellular process called calcium signalling working properly. Since calcium signalling is used by almost every cell in the body to switch things on and off it affects the functioning of almost every organ. That includes the regulation of calcium. Believe it or not we treat apparently severely calcium deficient horses in Australia by taking away their calcium supplements and giving relatively small amounts of chelated calcium. This is a distraction but there is a horse group in Australia set up to try to understand how and why chelated calcium helps horses that have actually been damaged by high levels of calcium supplementation. Happy customers trying to help where the science is lacking. So here is my take on calcium for birds. They need Chelated Calcium (CalciBoost) and they won’t overdose (we have no cases of overdose in 26 years). If they can avoid the traditional calcium supplementation (mostly limestone of DCP) then it is safe to offer it. So grit and cuttle bone is safe because they will not eat it if they don’t need it (they may chew it and play with it and work their beaks on it but they won’t ingest it). The pellets are another matter though I doubt any parrot pellet manufacturer will have more than 1.2% in their product – so should be safe. You are right – years ago we had huge numbers of ostriches in the UK with leg rotations. These were often on 2.9% calcium pellets. They resolved on chelated calcium! We only recommend you give Calciboost a couple of days a week when not breeding. That is a good plan The main issue with molting birds is to provide the methionine (there is a tonne of methionine in feathers and relatively little in seeds, fruits and veggies). There are other important nutrients like some balanced protein and MSM (a sulfur source). These enable the birds to grow new feathers and that enables them to drop the old ones fast and molt quickly. GA is a health product but it won’t help the molt particularly. GA is Energise plus a lot more. If you have GA I would use that and not Energise everytime. But if you don’t want to throw the Energise away use that for 3 days prior to the stress and switch to GA for the last day and the day or two after. Harrison’s ( a well-known vet in Florida with no magnesium or methionine in his pellets!!!) We are not great fans of parrot pellets. We prefer an interesting and appropriate seed mix plus fresh fruits and vegetables and a decent supplement like our Easy Bird Rest, Molt & Show. I hope that this is of some help. Best regards, Charlotte Doheny, Senior Advisor & Business Development Executive, The Birdcare Company, DrS, CROCdoc/Calinnova Ltd, Leading The Way- Naturally"
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Post by tweetiepiesmom on Apr 1, 2021 18:16:11 GMT
I'm just now catching up with this thread. Like you, Morgan, I'm interested in learning more about proper nutrition and diet for budgies. As you know my little Tweetie Pie was diagnosed with AGY and we went through the medical treatments in Dec and early Jan. My vet recommended that I transition him from a seed diet to a pellet diet and she recommended the Harrison's High Potency Mash to start with. I began a search for a good diet without seeds. I cam across Leslie Moran's website and blog. She sells a sprouting blend that she claims to have been optimized for parrots. I tried it, sprouting for 3 days, and both my budgies took to it immediately devouring it like they were starving. I contacted Leslie by email and told her about Tweetie Pie. She has several budgies, three of which had AGY. They went through the medical treatment and she worked with vet on their diet with the goal of improving their immunity. I have two budgies living together, one showing symptoms of AGY and one not. Her situation is similar and she attributes it to a difference in the strength of their immunity. She altered their diet and after a few weeks on the new diet, the AGY symptoms disappeared and vet saw no signs of the yeast in their poop. They may still have the yeast in their system but the symptoms are under control. She gave me their diet but asked me not to share the details. She will give the details to anyone who contacts her. My little TP is very stubborn but now after 2 months working with his diet, he (and Buddy) have transitioned to the new diet. During time, TP had a bacterial infection which I also had to treat. The vet said that was not unusual During all of this, TP was lethargic, not singing much but he was eating fine and flying but greatly stressed when I separated the two to treat him. I did alter TP's diet a little from Leslie's recommendation in that I sprinkled the Harrison's over the top of their food. In summary they get sprouts, rice/lentil cooked mash, fresh veggies including broccoli and spinach. Leslies says that spinach has the same amount of oxalic acid and calcium so the oxalic acid binds the calcium in the spinach not in the budgie's system. It has taken awhile but yesterday, TP was energetic and today he remains energetic! I was so afraid I was going to loose him. He has not vomited for 3-4 weeks now. Until two days ago, he and Buddy have not had any seeds except millet treat (usually a bauble each). I found a source of seeds without any additives. Two days ago I gave them about 1/4 tsp. Yesterday I gave them the same amount. TP has not vomited it. I can't say for sure what his improvement is attributed to - Leslie's diet, a bit of seeds, spring arriving with the wild birds chirping. I'm just so happy he's better! Morgan since you are in the US, where do you get your GA and Flourish? I think the Flourish may be good for TP. I you don't mind, can you PM me the source? Leslie Moran's website has nutrition research information that she gathered and/or her ow research. n my humble opinion, even expert's advise need to be altered depending on medical conditions of your budgies and what you can get them to eat. bestbirdfoodever.com/Sorry for the long post on your thread!
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Pellets
Apr 2, 2021 0:59:16 GMT
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Post by Morgan on Apr 2, 2021 0:59:16 GMT
tweetiepiesmom - Oh please don’t apologize! I’m probably the queen of long winded intrusions and subject changes in threads. >.< I’m all about discussion so I really welcome it on my threads I might have started it but it’s not really “mine” anyway. Everything you were describing was actually very inspiring! I’m also super happy to know that Tweetie Pie is experiencing some real results from his new diet! Good job mom!! Would you mind sharing Leslie’s information with me? You can message me directly it for her privacy. I would love to know her method. My birds don’t have any issues currently except Monkey (and now Topsie) is a bit overweight. Unless I want to feed them separately every day for every meal it would be hard to manage it further, but you never know what a different/better diet might do. It’s interesting because in Monkey’s case she doesn’t seem to spend any more time at the food dish than the others, or fly around any less, so maybe she just has a slower metabolism? I sometimes let them free feed whatever they want for the day (like today actually) to also see just how much they can/will eat when allowed to pig out. It isn’t much more than what I feed them regularly anyway, which is also interesting (and comforting for me). So I have just been working on increasing the amount of fresh veggies and greens my birds are eating, so I don’t think much has changed (I haven’t done a real comparison yet between what I was doing before and now, but I do keep notes every time I make a change to their diet so I can look back and keep track of how they were/are doing each time). So they get about 25% of their diet as a mix of 50% Harrison’s, and around 35% Caitec Oven Fresh and 15% TOPs pellets, mostly for variety, then 25% is soaked/sprouted seeds (sometimes dry too), and the other 50% of their diet is all fresh foods. Three days of the week is all veggies and some low sugar fruits only, usually berries, and occasionally a little piece of something a bit sweeter. And the other four is the same, except they also get a quarter of an egg and/or quinoa each day (about a tbsp all together) and at least another of boiled sweet potato or squash and blanched broccoli plus their usual chop or frozen veggie mix. They always get more veggies than they can eat because that is my free-feeding method so they always have food, just nothing fattening. One thing I have really been wanting to do is cook up a mix of more varied grains rather than just quinoa, but I have been doing all my shopping in bulk at Costco so I only have one shopping trip each month to go out for, and I do any other necessary errands the same day (also it’s a 1.5hour drive each way) so I don’t have time to stop and go to another grocery store to get other grains. I suppose I could order them online but I’m not much of an online shopper either... That’s probably an excuse really, along with being “too busy” >.< But I don’t think they’re in danger of malnutrition or anything! I think also not having any sort of set “recipe” to go by (and various grains cook for different amounts of time too) so was kinda demotivating me a bit. How much of which grains are most important to include? If Leslie has already worked all that out I wouldn’t mind trying out her diet I did find the BCC supplements online though. I use allbirdproducts.com. I don’t think they have free shipping but it’s nominal, and their prices are fair. I’m pretty sure they’re California based because the two times I ordered it arrived within 2-3 days. Double yay for Tweetie Pie! 🥰
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Pellets
Apr 2, 2021 1:07:47 GMT
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Post by Morgan on Apr 2, 2021 1:07:47 GMT
Oh also, super interesting about the oxalic acid and calcium conundrum with spinach! Makes me feel better about eating it myself too! It’s so funny how we learn new information and then form an opinion about it, and then sometimes more information reveals that we needn’t have worried so much in the first place. xD I think I do that every single time
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