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| Feeding information for African Grey Parrots |
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At best an African Grey’s feeding habits can be called fussy. Some will eat
soft fruit and others only hard. Some eat vegetables and others will not. One thing
all Greys have in common is that they will all eat sunflower. To a grey this is "junk food"
as it contains a high level of fat and is of no great nutritional value. Their diet also seems
to lack Calcium. One of the under lying factors in a most sick Grey is nearly always contributed
to bad diet and in particular the lack of calcium in that diet.
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Calcium is found in dairy products but these foods do not feature
highly in a parrot’s diet. You may like to try your bird on
hard boiled egg, natural yogurt, watercress, spinach or blackberries.
We feed a calcium supplement called CALCIVET 3 times
a week, which gives your bird all its calcium requirements. Our birds never have bad moults, are in fine feather and have never shown any signs of stress. A bonus to this, is that our breeding pairs when laying, have good egg formation and thickness.
We soak pulses to germination (sprouting), and to
this we add a small amount of sunflower mix (Tropical, Elite, Exotic, or Parrot No1
are mixes we use). These mixes have many ingredients in them (see Feed Specialists). We do
not use separate bowls for fruit and vegetables - it is all mixed into one bowl. 2 or 3 times a week
we add EMP egg food and Palm Nut oil to the mix.
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We put 3/4 drops of Calcivet 3 times a
week, straight onto the food and not into the water as stated on the bottle.
The reason we put it onto the food is that we know some of our Greys may not drink in a 24hour period because
they are getting their liquid intake from the fresh fruit and vegetables. We have now done this for many years.
You will see from the list you can offer your parrot a widely varied diet.
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NEVER FEED YOUR AFRICAN GREY AVOCADO PEAR, It will kill your pet or make it very very ill.
Treat all house plants as poisonous until you establish what they are. The list is endless.
Wash all fresh fruit and vegetables before feeding.
Thoroughly rinse all soaked pulses before feeding (they can sour very quickly especially in hot weather). The use of Avi-Med safe sprout inhibits the growth of moulds and yeasts during the soaking process.
Wash all drinking and feeding bowls daily.
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FOOD LIST
Apples, pears, bananas, grapes, cherries, pomegranates, oranges,
tomatoes, cucumber, celery, peas, French beans, corn on the
cob, Harvest Crunch, sultanas, baked beans, hard boiled eggs, tuna fish chunks in brine (this has to
be well washed to remove the brine), carrot (raw or cooked or grated),
peppers (all colours).
Broccoli, grapefruit, mixed nuts (shelled), spring onions, natural
yogurt, watercress, dandelion leaves (well washed), rose hips, chillies,
lemon, chickweed (well washed), kiwi fruit. This is a list of some of the foods that we have fed our birds.
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