VEGETARIAN TYPE DIETS

Tradition dictates that pet birds eat a seed diet. Unfortunately, seeds contain protein of low biological values as do grains, fruits, greens and vegetables. The amino-acid structure of these foods are deficient in both quantity and quality of essential amino-acids. This fact makes vegetarian diets hazardous. Deficiencies of essential amino-acids easily occur.

UNBALANCED DIETS

In most instances, bird seed diets have not been scientifically formulated and are not balanced. Birds eating these diets run a high risk of malnutrition.

• Commercial bird seed diets are usually not nutritionally complete, and if complete, rarely indicate that the diet is only balanced if every part of the mix is eaten.

• Homemade bird seed diets often have been put together with the best of intentions and the best of ingredients, but trying to balance a bird's diet without training is like trying to bake a cake without a recipe. Further, diets need to be evaluated through a process of testing, calculations, and chemical analysis before they are considered satisfactory.

FREE CHOICE FEEDING Placing a variety of food in the dish and letting birds eat free choice courts disaster. Birds have neither the instinct nor intelligence to pick a balanced diet from a selection of foods.

• Monophagism - (habitual eating of one kind of food) When carefully feeding and caring for birds of the parrot family, one notices that they have dietary "binges". That is, they will eat one food almost exclusively for a period of time and then without obvious reason switch to another food and eat it in preference to anything else.

• Picky Eater - Partially because of inherited characteristics, and partially from acquired habits, birds can become locked into eating a narrow selection of foods. They will approach their food dish as if more concerned about what not to eat rather than what they should eat. Picking and pecking, spilling out, sorting through and finally selecting a food, makes up their daily routine. This highly undesirable situation fosters nutritional deficiencies in addition to wasting more food than they eat.

Allowing a bird to eat in this manner invites nutritional problems. Unfortunately, these poor eating habits go unrecognized when birds are allowed to eat free choice from a variety of foods constantly in front of them . Whether from being a picky eater or from monophagism, a bird eating mainly one food may not be getting all the nutrition required.

CONTINUOUS CONFINEMENT IN SMALL CAGES

An animal's nutritional status can be indirectly affected by continuous caging. An advanced behavior pattern develops in which a bird shuns anything that is not familiar. Because of this, the bird rejects any new foods. In doing this, the bird clings to his narrow diet and is fearful of new foods which could help to balance his diet.

FAST METABOLIC RATE

Although pet and aviary birds spend many hours in cages, their metabolism and structure are that of a flying machine. Even when not active, they have a body with the capacity for tremendous and sustained power. A healthy bird burns a hot fire internally, manufactures more heat than any other vertebrate, consumes more oxygen, eats more food, and moves more quickly. All of these factors confirm the unusually fast metabolism of a bird.

Because of this fast metabolic rate, birds need to be fed a different diet than other animals. They require relatively large volumes of a calorically dense, highly digestible food which contains a nutritionally complete diet. Further, because of the large "turnover" in food daily, what may be minor deficiencies in other animals become magnified into major deficiencies in birds. Try thinking of the bird as a super-athlete (and in every sense of the word it is true) and requiring a super-diet.

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