Foraging day!
Today was the task for Milo and Charlie's beaks as they got digging into a lovely pile of foraging goodies. Milo, being a rescue tiel, was plucked by a budgie he was living with so needs stimulation to help draw his mind from the bald patch on his neck and head. Both tiels got stuck in and I have a little foraging dish you could try at home.
You will need:
- 1 dish (large)
- Sliced carrots
- Dried pasta/Cooked pasta
- Folded pieces of card
- Broccoli
These are the things I used with in my foraging dish which worked very well. Each item is good for the birds (non-toxic) and is healthy for them like the broccoli and carrots.
Place everything into a dish and put it infront of your tiel, being a naturally curious bird, tiels are known to investigate things first time round without fear and that is exactly what mine did. If you are having trouble getting your bird to forage. Play with the items in the dish yourself. Tiels love it when their owners get involved and going by example, they usually follow what we are doing, even if it is foraging!
Fruits and vegtables work well with birds because they are colourful and help give your birds the vitamins and minerals they need. Anything with colour is interesting to a bird and treats also encourage them to get involved so I would highly reccomend trying a foraging dish.
As you can see, coloured paper was a hit with Milo. He was very involved in the action. Foraging with vegtables and fruit is not onloy healthy but can encourage them to do other things such as, take a bath for example. So it really does help!
NOTE: For larger parrots, it is better to use larger foraging items to prevent choking and to make the dish more suitable and fun for the bird.
Hope this helps.
A birds diet
A birds diet should consist of about 40% vegtables and fruit, 30% pellets and 30% seeds approximatly.
A good brand of pellets to buy out their would be harrisons bird pellets which comes in: super fine, fine, medium, large and extra large depending on what size bird you have.
Fine - Budgies
Medium - Cockatiels
Large - African greys
Harrisons is good because it is natural and uses natural flavourings and no preservatives like some brands which can harm your bird or it can be very unhealthy for the bird.
An all seed diet can cause complications in a bird because seed is very unhealthy and can lead to things such a liver faliure. So pellets do need to be offered to. It is hard to get a bird to eat pellets so weaning them onto this diet is the only option.
Seed is needed, however, to make sure a birds diet it still healthy so feeding you bird seed is great to. I would recommend tidy mix for the bigger birds as it contains dried fruit and a variety of helahty seeds as well (avaliable only in the UK). If not, cheap seed is ok as it is still natural but just does not contain the extra vitamins!
Vegtable and fruit for your birds is vital to keep them healthy when going through molts or to keep them alive longer! Although a bird with a bad diet can still lead a happy life, a bird with a better diet is much healthier and it can lower complications in the future.
I suggest things such as:
- Sweetcorn
- Broccoli
- Curly kale
- Apple
-Carrots
- Banana
- Rasberries
Please make sure, to lower the risks of illness, that the produce you buy is organic as pesticides pose a big threat to birds and is very toxic.
Avoid foods high in fat, sugar and salt like
-Sunflower seeds (to many can make a bird fat)
-Millet (again to much can make a bird fat)
- Honey/honey sticks (can make a bird fat)
- Chocolate, crisps, chips (toxic and fattening to birds!)
- Avacardos (toxic to birds)
- Green vegtables such as Lettuce can cause watery and green poo in birds so it is best to avoid it.
Hope this helps
Safe branches and food
Safe foods:
- Radishes
- Turnips
- Carrots
- Kale
- Parsley
- Tomato
- Green beans
- Beet (red beet must be peeled)
- Broccoli
- Corn
- Cucumber
- Apples
- Kiwi
- Mango
- Apples
- Banana
- Pears
- Cherries
- Pineapple
- Cranberries
- Grapes
- Apricots
Safe branches:
- Apple tree
- Ash tree
- Birch tree
- Beech tree
- Bamboo tree
- Aspen tree
- Almond tree
- Elm tree
- Fig tree
- Fir tree
- Grape vine tree
- Grape palm tree
Branches to avoid:
- Avacado tree
- Baneberry tree
- Elderberry tree
- Foxglove tree
- Flame tree
- Cherry tree
- Plum tree
Hope this helps.
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