seeds, pulses and pelletts

[Guest briansmum]

i was reading that a lot of you feed your birds on pellets. when i got my bird the breeder gave me a large sack of dried seeds and pulses that i have to soak over night till they sprout. this is his main diet with fruit and veggies.. and the odd sunflower seed or two! what are these pellets and should i be feeding him them? or will he get enough nutrition from the soaked pulses?

[jtullos2]

Pellets are great becasue they are scientifically devolped to be nutritional so your bird will be getting all the nutrition he needs. My vet recomended about 85% fruits, vegi's and pellets and about 15% seeds. Most pellets claim to be all a bird needs but its good to let them expierence all kinds of things. I dont think mine would be happy on only pellets.

[splint101]

Max is on some sunflower seed, but for now he is still on the formula 2 times daily. But other than that I serve him some veggies and fruit and a cook-up mix. Be loves his carrots. I am searching where I can find some of this food here in South Africa http://www.harrisonsbirdfoods.com/

[Caspersmum]

Casper has pellets as the staple part of his diet - I switched him over from seeds, which he'd been fed by his previous owners. I did a lot of reading, and it seemed that they offer a good balanced diet. The ones I use are Hagen tropican, and casper loves them. I tried him on Pretty Bird pellets before that, which he refused to touch, despite trying really hard to get him to switch. I used Harrison's for my previous birds, but it's really expensive - even though it's meant to be the best. If you are going to get it, I'd advise you use the fine grind - it contains the same ingredients as the coarse grind, but I found that they wasted a lot less of it, and at that price it saved a fortune!

 

In the UK I get my Hagen pellets from 24parrot.co.uk - they do a 2 for 3 offer on a lot of their pellets. Not sure about South Africa though.

 

I also give Casper plenty of fruit and veg - as well as pretty much whatever I cook for myself - so long as it's bird safe. I know you're both pretty new at this - sorry if I'm just repeating what you already know, but thought it might help,

 

Julia

[Guest Monique]

Sprouts are supposed to be absolutely wonderful full of vitamins and minerals. I have heard lots of great things about them. I do know you have to be very careful with the process and rinsing and such for them to remain safe and fresh.

 

Pellets are generally preferred over a dried seed diet.

[judygram]

I have tried sprouts but have not quite got the hang of it yet. I feed Harrisons High Potency fine pellets, my vet said 60% or more of her diet should be the pellets with another 20% veggies and fruits and 20% of table foods. She likes the pellets but I notice she is grabbing a foot full out of her bowl and eating them from the foot instead of putting her head in the bowl and picking them up with her beak. She wastes some that way, I can hear them falling into the bottom of the cage.

[Guest briansmum]

Brian seems to like the sprouts now that he is vernturing more onto his solid food and away from the baby formula. I like the srouts as there are lots of different sprouty seedy things in there and he can pick what he fancies munchin on. they do tae a fair bit of prepareing though, you have to start soaking them 2 days in advance and make sure they're properly washed before feeding, you can boil them but i dont have time so i given them a rough wash in a cullinder this seems to do the trick.