Changing your bird's diet - Bird Vet - parrot diet

Feeding my Bird - Bird Vet Melbourne (Avian vet)

Servicing all Melbourne suburbs including Scorsby, Burwood, Flemington, Glen Waverley, Box Hill, Camberwell, Doncaster, Ascot Vale, and surrounding areas across Victoria.

parrot diet - budgie diet - bird vet

Bird Vets routinely see health problems associated with poor diets. Any new diet should always be introduced gradually. Simply start as follows:

Feed the FOUR food groups below every SINGLE day

  1. Dark green vegetables - Eg Silverbeet, Spinach, carrot, Broccoli etc (Light green veg eg Celery, cucumber, iceberg are safe but not nutritious)
  2. Limited Seed - making up less than 1/3 of the diet. Seed must be reduced gradually over about 6 weeks.
  3. Pellets - like Harrison's, Zupreem and Vetafarm.
  4. Low fat Low sugar Low salt human foods - eg Oats, wheat bix, rice, pasta etc
  5. Certain specific species also need fruit added daily. eg Lorikeet

It is so easy to feed a healthy balanced diet! Do not only feed seed.

Almost all birds like corn and Apple.

Do NOT feed Avocado!

Bird Vet Dr Phil Suggests: To get your pet to eat complete food like Harrison's pellets or Zupreem bird food, try the following in THREE IDENTICAL FOOD CONTAINERS

  • Mix the new diet - Pellets with the old diet - seed at a ratio of 1:1 or 50% of each in the three feeding containers - all identical.
  • Do this for 1 week. Your bird will accidentally taste the new food as they try to pick out the seed. By tasting small bits of the pellets your bird will learn it is food.
  • On week 2 add 60% pellets and 40% seeds into the 3 separate feeding containers - all food bowls identical.
  • On week 3 add 70% pellets and 30% seed in 3 separate containers. (Add a third feed dish) - do NOT remove seed completely.

Having three feeding dishes encourages foraging and mental stimulation once seed is restricted.

Pet birds absolutely love sharing your meals with you! It is both mentally and psychologically beneficial - but try to eat healthy "bird" food.

You can also try these ideas:

  • Place the pellets near a favourite perching position.
  • Mix the limited seed in with the pellets in all three food dishes every day.

Play with pellets on a surface with the bird watching.

The reward is a healthier bird that lives longer.

Use the analogy - McDonald's Burger, chips and a coke is human food the same way seeds are bird food!

Think about the analogy yourself and the problems we have from fatty foods like Diabetes etc. Similar problems occur in birds.

The ideal parrot diet has about 8% fat, and has variety.

Chicken vet diet - see the chicken page.