You’re seated at the kitchen table, ready to take a bite of your spaghetti and meatballs, when you hear a big “screeeeeeeh” from your parrot in his cage about 10 feet away. He gazes intently at the food you are about to put in your mouth. Then he crouches down on his perch and starts shaking his wings, which is his way of begging for a treat. You can tell he desperately wants a bite of your spaghetti, but should you?
“It’s fine to give table food to your parrot – if the food is nutritionally balanced and none of the ingredients are toxic,” said Brian Speer, DVM, an avian veterinarian in Oakley, California, and co-author of Birds for Dummies (IDG Books, 1999). In fact, most avian veterinarians encourage pet owners to share some of their meals with their parrots each day.
“None of the formulated diets have been absolutely proven to be 100 percent complete and balanced nutrition for any pet bird species,” noted Missouri veterinarian and aviculturist, Julie Burge, DVM. There are around 350 psittacine species, and no one bird diet can perfectly meet the nutritional needs of all parrots, she said. A blue-and-gold macaw, for instance, may need a higher level of certain vitamins or minerals than a rose-breasted cockatoo, yet, the two birds might be eating the same formulated food. Supplementing the diet with healthy table foods can help “balance out” a bird’s diet and ensure its nutritional needs are being provided for, Dr. Burge said.
Table food can also offer a psychological benefit, added Don Harris, DVM, an avian veterinarian in Miami, Florida. “If you only feed your bird pellets, that can become really monotonous after a while,” he said. “Parrots are intelligent creatures and need the intellectual stimulation of a varied diet.” Not only are different foods enjoyable for birds to taste, foods with varied textures like broccoli, Swiss chard and string beans, are fun for parrots to shred and chew.
How much “people food” should be given to a pet bird each day? In general, avian veterinarians recommend that 70 to 80 percent of a parrot’s diet (by volume) be comprised of an extruded or palletized formulated bird food, and the remaining 20 to 30 percent of a parrot’s diet be made up of some seed, vegetables, whole grains, legumes, poultry, fish and other healthy table foods. (This is a general diet, different species need different percentages.)
Ideally, you should give your bird a “smorgasbord” of several different fresh or prepared foods each day, rather than a large quantity of just one or two foods, advised Larry Nemetz, DVM, an exotics- only veterinarian in Southern California. Offering a variety of foods is important, he said, so that you cover all the food groups. “Like people, birds need to eat some protein, carbohydrate, fats, and vitamins and minerals every day,” Dr. Nemetz said.
With his own birds, on any one day he might give them some vegetables, which provide necessary vitamins and minerals, and then maybe some egg, chicken or beans as a protein source, some pasta or rice to help meet their carbohydrates requirements, and then a tiny amount of a fat source, such as some peanut butter or a nut.
You might need to provide a little more or less of certain food groups, depending on the species of bird you own. For instance, “macaws need a higher-fat content in their diet, so they can be given more nuts and higher fat foods,” Dr. Burge said. “On the other hand, a parrot prone to obesity, such as many Amazons or quaker parrots, would benefit more from healthy, low-fat treats like vegetables. Eclectus parrots and Amazons need more vitamin A than other species, so carrots and sweet potatoes are good choices for them.”
If you have questions about which nutrients are most critical for your species of bird, talk to your veterinarian. There are, however, some generalities that apply to all psittacines. What follows is a list of table foods that should and shouldn’t be offered to any parrot species, as well as a description of foods that should be offered only occasionally or in very small amounts. This should give you a good place to start when making table food selections for your avian companion.
Off-Limit Table Foods
Foods that should never be offered to parrots include chocolate; caffeinated and alcoholic beverages; avocado; shellfish; and any meat, fish, poultry or eggs that is undercooked or has been cooked, refrigerated and then reheated.
Many bird owners have heard the warning about chocolate, but it’s worth repeating. “Chocolate contains a compound called theobromine, which is like caffeine in that it is a stimulant,” explained Natalie Antinoff DVM, an exotics-only veterinarian in Houston, Texas. In high enough quantities, chocolate can cause birds to suffer heart problems, depression, regurgitation seizures, liver damage and even death.
“Since the consistency of chocolate is so thick, it is not easily flushed out if a bird does eat it,” Dr. Antinoff said. Chocolate candy is also bad because of its high sugar levels. Even a small bite of chocolate could be harmful to your bird. “A bird’s bodyweight is much less than ours, so it takes a lot smaller volumes to cause equal signs of illness,” noted Dr. Speer. “If your 400-gram Amazon eats one small square of chocolate, that would be the equivalent of a human being eating a 10-pound bar of chocolate. If you eat 10-pounds of chocolate will have the same clinical signs as your Amazon parrot that ate one small square of chocolate.”
Caffeinated beverages such as coffee, tea and cola can cause an increase in heart rate in pet birds and make them hyperactive. If enough of a caffeinated beverage is consumed, a bird could have seizures and die.
Alcohol, too, can cause seizures and death. Dr. Burge recalled a case of a client who woke up one morning after having thrown a party the night before and found his parrot dead in the living room. “The bird was allowed to fly loose and had consumed enough alcohol from the glasses left by guests to die from alcohol poisoning,” she related.
Avocado is a “no-no” because of the pit, which contains an oil that leaches toxin into the fruit. The toxin is persin, a fatty acid-like compound that has cardio-toxic effects. Avocado-toxicity can produce lethargy, anorexia, breathing difficulty and sudden death.
In Dr. Nemetz’s experience, avocado seems to be especially harmful to smaller psittacines such as lovebirds, parakeets and cockatiels (which often become very sick and die within a day or two of eating avocado), but larger parrots are also susceptible. He once treated a cockatoo that had been fed avocado for sex months before getting sick from it.
The fish and meat warnings are very similar for birds as they are for people. Dr. Nemetz does not recommend shellfish because “it can be toxic, which humans may be able to get away with eating, but birds are much sensitive, so it’s best to not take any chances.”
Uncooked, undercooked or reheated animal protein should not be given to pet birds because it is at a higher risk of bacterial infection than meats that are freshly and fully cooked, according to Dr. Nemetz. So, if you’re eating a reheated or rarely cooked steak sandwich for lunch or drinking a shake with raw eggs in it, don’t off any tastes to your parrot. If there’s any “bad” bacteria in the food, you not become ill from it, but your bird might.
Table Foods in Moderation
The second category of table foods should only be given very occasionally to your pet bird, if at all. Tops on this list is “junk food,” such as potato chips, tortilla chips, salty crackers, cheese curls and French fries, as well as sweets and cookies, cake, donuts, muffins and other baked goodies. These foods are all high in saturated fat, in addition to being high in sugar or salt (depending on whether it’s a savory or sweet snack) and have little or no nutritional value.
High-fat foods can contribute to obesity and high cholesterol, and in time, can cause life-threatening problems such as hepatic lipidosis (fatty liver disease), atherosclerosis, strokes and heart disease. Sugary foods can add to the obesity problem as well, especially if the bird isn’t getting enough exercise. Too many high-salt foods can cause dehydration, pulmonary edema, brain congestion, kidney failure, enteritis and high-blood pressure.
What if you cannot resist giving your parrot some potato chips or cookies? It’s OK to give your bird a taste “every now and then,” Dr. Burge said, but it needs to be “in reasonable quantities and with regard to your bird’s health status. Let your lean-and-healthy macaw have a whole French fry, but give your conure a small piece, while your overweight Amazon will have to settle for a carrot stick.” (Note: Remove salt from the fry.)
Junk food becomes a problem when birds eat it more than a couple times a week or when they get portions that are too large for their body size. Dr. Speer brings the point home this way: “The average Amazon weights 400 grams, but a man might weigh 170 pounds. As a percentage of body weight, it’s going to take far less salty tortilla chips to create a salt toxicosis in the bird as compared to the human.” If you do give your bird a salty chip, break off a tiny piece of one chip for him, rather than giving him an entire chip.
Also be careful about giving your bird heavy, starchy foods such as stuffing, mashed potatoes and gravy, tater tots, hash browns, cheeseburgers, macaroni and cheese, lasagna and fettuccini Alfredo. Granted, these foods do offer some nutritional value, but they’re very fattening and loaded in way too many calories for the average bird to eat a lot of.
“Really high-calorically-dense foods are not good for birds because if they eat those they don’t eat their pellets,” said Jeffrey Jenkins, DVM, an avian veterinarian in Southern California. “Something like mashed potatoes and gravy is OK in small amounts, but birds shouldn’t eat a whole lot of it because if you give them too much, they’re going to fill up on the potatoes and then they don’t eat enough of their pellets. If they did that every day they’re not going to get a well-balanced diet.”
Dairy products should also be limited or avoided altogether. “Birds do not have lactase, the enzyme which helps digest lactose,” Dr. Antinoff said.
Many people like to give their birds cheese or cereal with milk poured on it, but, in time, milk consumption can cause severe allergic reactions in pet birds as well as severe diarrhea and inflammation of the gastrointestinal tract system – either which can be life threatening. It’s best to avoid giving dairy products to your bird. If you insist on giving milk or cheese, make it only a small taste and only a couple of times a month at the most.
There’s also some specific issues with cheese. Most types of cheese exceed 85-percent fat and do not provide a lot of protein or other nutrients. Mozzarella cheese in particular has a lot of gum in it and is very rubbery, which can form into a big mass in a bird’s crop or gastrointestinal tract and cause a blockage. Dr. Nemetz has had to surgically remove wads of mozzarella cheese from birds’ crops. “Usually it happens after the owners have had pizza, and they let their bird get hold of some and the next day the bird is throwing up,” he said. If you give your bird pizza, it’s best to remove the cheese on the piece you give him.
Because many birds develop high cholesterol problems, Dr. Burge advises bird owners to restrict the amount of egg yolks and red meat, which could contribute to cholesterol increases. She recalled a case of a couple who fed their Amazon sausage, bacon and eggs almost every morning. “The bird had a cholesterol level so high that the laboratory could not measure it due to the high-fat content in the blood causing the machines to malfunction,” she said. There’s also the additional concern with beef and pork in that they have a high phosphorus content and can cause or exacerbate calcium deficiencies in a bird’s body.
Tofu, too, can be a problem for bids. “In some species, it can cause gastrointestinal problems like cheese does,” Dr. Nemetz said. Also, because tofu is high in protein, it can be hard on a bird’s kidneys.
The last type of food in this category of restricted table foods is fruit. That’s a bit controversial, Dr. Speers admitted, because in a lot of people’s minds, “they put fruit in the same category as vegetables. But in general, fruits are lower priority than vegetables. Fruit is higher in sugar and, when you give it to your bird, it gets more energy than it should have, and it can become hyper. Also, fruit is kind of empty as far as nutritional value overall compared to vegetables.”
Dr. Harris agreed, and added: “Fruit is probably the biggest misdirection of a bird’s diet, other than the standard seed diets. The only thing worse than an all seed diet is a seed-and-fruit diet, because now you’re feeding the fat, and you’re driving it into the cells with sugar.” He suggests that, at the most, only give your bird a small piece of fruit a couple of times a week. “The portion you give shouldn’t exceed the size of the bird’s head,” Dr. Harris said. Any more than that is going to be too big of a piece.
Good Table Foods for Birds
Bad table foods aside, there’s a long list of foods that are really good to feed to your bird. Good protein sources included cooked dried beans (such as black beans, navy beans, red beans, pinto beans, garbanzo beans, kidney beans, lentils and dried split peas), and lean meats like chicken, turkey and fish (salmon, trout, halibut and tuna).
“Beans are a really good food for a lot of parrots,” Dr. Jenkins said. “They’re not high in calories, they have good-quality proteins, and they don’t put a lot of weight on the bird.” He recommends cooked rather than sprouted beans, because sprouts can spoil easily. The beans can be cooked until they’re soft or mushy and spiced with cayenne pepper or cumin, which parrots really like.
Grilled, roasted or broiled poultry or fish is best (rather than fried or barbecued). You can also give your parrot canned tuna, but make it water-packed rather than oil-packed.
Cooked eggs can also be good sources of protein if your bird is not overweight. “Even then, you might want to make it three egg whites to one yolk,” suggested California veterinarian, Tia Greenberg, DVM.
Healthy foods that meet your bird’s carbohydrates requirements include whole wheat bread, whole-grain or spinach pasta, and brown rice. White bread and white rice are OK to give your bird occasionally as a treat, but they are not going to offer a lot in the way of nutrition. If you put sauce on your bird’s pasta, choose a fat-free version like marinara or pesto, rather than a creamy white sauce.
“Stay away from white sauces, which are usually butter and cream,” Dr. Nemetz advised. “Dairy products are not absorptive, the butter is very high in fat, and why add to the fat? Tomato sauce on the other hand is a simple carb, there’s no fat, and you’re not glopping the sauce on; you’re just coating the pasta slightly so that it looks red.
In the vitamins and minerals group, basically any type of vegetable is fine to give to your bird. Broccoli, cauliflower, peas, string beans, squash, carrots, yams, spinach, Swiss chard, romaine lettuce and lima beans are usually favorites among parrots. Fresh vegetables are ideal, but warned frozen vegetables are also good.
Safe fat sources are seeds, nuts and peanut butter. If you are cooking something in oil choose an unsaturated fat source like olive or safflower oil. Keep in mind that birds don’t need a whole lot of this food group- especially if they are overweight.
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