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Newly Converted Seed Junkies

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Seed

Newly Converted Seed Junkies

We often get asked for advice on how to convert seed junkies (Birds who have been fed an all-seed diet all their lives) onto a healthier diet of chop (a mixture of chopped-up fruits and vegetables) and pellets. In this blog post, we will be sharing the importance of a proper diet as well as our team members’ methods of converting seed junkies. In the wild, your parrot would have had a wide variety of seeds, nuts, fruits, and vegetation to eat. In captivity, it is our responsibility to ensure that they are fed a well-balanced diet since they are unable to go to the grocery store to get some extra veg if they feel like they have been eating too many seeds. Small parrots (Budgies, Cockatiels, Lovebirds, Celestial parakeets, etc.) have a diet made up out of a larger of % seeds than larger birds. The general breakdown of their diet is: 10% fruits and sprouts, 15% seeds, 30% pellets and grains, and 45% vegetables. Common parrots (Ringnecks, Pionus, Amazons, African Greys, Cockatoos, Conures, Macaws, etc.) have a diet that is made up out of 10% fruits and sprouts, 10% seeds, 30% vegetables, and 50% pellets and grains. Other parrots such as Lorikeets and Eclectus have highly specialized diets which we will not be going into in this article.

Pellets have been specifically formulated to meet your bird’s nutritional needs. You can find different formulations for different species and different stages of life. You can even find specific pellets formulated to assist with certain illnesses and diseases such as birds who are experiencing liver or kidney failure. When feeding vegetables, it is recommended to stay away from pale vegetables that are high in water composition such as iceberg lettuce and celery as they have little to no nutritional value for your bird. When feeding you should always feed more vegetables than fruit because fruit is high in sugar which can, in turn, lead to obesity or diabetes if fed in high quantities. It is always recommended to wash fresh produce thoroughly to remove chemicals since you do not know what was done to them by the grower or store.

Now, on to some methods that our team members employ in their own flocks or fosters that they take in to convert seed junkies onto a healthier diet

Examples of seed junkie chop mixes:

Seed

Klaas:

“What I have found works for the seed junkies that have come into my care is if I start them off on the seeds that they came with, be that sunflower, millet, etc. and add finely chopped chop into it. I put it into the food processor to ensure it is in small pieces. This way as they go to pick up the seeds that they are used to, they also get in some of the vegetable mix. I usually start out with 75% bad seed (rinsed in apple cider vinegar to kill spores) and 25% vegetables and then slowly adjust the percentages until there is 75% vegetables and 25% seeds. During this process, I will also start replacing some of the bad seeds with a better seed mix such as the one from The Parrot Hotel or Parrotainment”

Pictured below:

Basil is a Budgy Boy who suffers from aspergillosis due to a diet of bad seed in his previous home. He is now on a more well-balanced diet.

Muffin (cockatiel) enjoys sitting in the kitchen while his human prepares him and his brother’s chop base for the week.

Seed

Abi’s Seed Junkie Chop Mix:

Ingredients: • Bad seed, washed in ACV to remove spores. • Healthy seed, normal and small bird. • Natures nest soft grain or ground up pellets. • Chop, mashed, or pureed.

Method: Mix 1 teaspoon of bad seed with a double serving of healthy seed and small birdseed. Mix a serving of pellet powder into that. Mix a serving of chop into that. Mix it all together, making sure all the seeds are buried in the chop/pellet mix.

Continue that for the first 3 days, reducing the number of bad seeds daily. Depending on how the bird responds, reduce the number of bad seeds until you stop adding them at all. Continue that while reducing the number of seeds to a healthy level, over the course of a few weeks.

Depending on how the bird responds, slowly start introducing whole pellets in addition to the powder, start with a teaspoon, so they explore the size and texture. Then increase the amount weekly. It is important to maintain healthy ratios of chop/pellets while doing the introduction to healthy eating so that they learn to eat everything in order to be satisfied.

Pictured below:

Cotton (cockatiel) is a recent addition to the #ChopGang.

Pauli (Patagonian conure) is a very hungry boi who now ADORES his chop.

Seed

Kathleen:

Peanut ate 100% sunflower seed with no vegetables or fruit when I got her. 1.) I gave her three days to decompress where I kept her on the 100% sunflower seed – this was just to ensure she was eating. 2.) On day 4 I started introducing canary seed mix by mixing it into her seed. I made toys out of vegetables and hung them in her cage – she mostly ignored them, but the idea was just to get her used to them. 3.) By week 2 I started adding very small quantities (half a teaspoon) of cooked rice and barley to her seed mix. I also crushed pellets (very small amount and sprinkled it over). 4.) I started introducing grated apple and cooked pumpkin by week three. I started phasing out sunflower seed – so if she was on 90% I would make 10% more veggies or crushed pellets or healthy seeds and remove that amount of sunflower seed. It was at her pace – if she stopped eating we went back a step and waited until she was comfortable again to continue. 5.) Week by week I would decrease the sunflower seed by 10% increments and some weeks I would have to increase it again – eventually, after about 4 months, she started eating chop, only healthy seeds (canary mix with added seeds), and pellets.

Pictured below:

Popcorn (cockatiel) enjoying some delicious chop.

Pancake (cockatiel) checking out her chop to spot the next bite.

Seed

Nicola:

I love using squash/butternut mash with couscous, cooked in rooibos tea and turmeric. Crushed pellets and a healthy seed mix are added to this. Then when they start taking to this mixture you start adding more and more chop to it. Some birds take longer than others to convert. My Galah refused to eat chop for over a year since I got him and has only recently started enjoying the healthy diet.

Sprouts absolutely didn’t work for my birds. I know it’s usually one of the preferred methods – especially sprouted sunflower, but I am not comfortable with sprouting it in the shell unless absolutely necessary, because of the increased risk of infections such as aspergillosis (a primary cause of which is fungal spores present inside the shell of sunflower seed and peanuts)… I feel like exposing these seeds to moisture as part of the sprouting process increases the risk of fungus growing where it should not. I do include sprouts in their daily diet, but I chop it up along with other vegetables, greens, flowers and even seeds (such as flax seed which is more easily digested in powdered form) in the food processor. None of my birds have taken to sprouts in their “natural” form, but to each their own! If you do choose to sprout sunflower seed, make sure it’s the de-husked, human food-grade variant, and watch your sprouting times so that they don’t get soggy.

Healthy seed mixes such as those from Parrotainment SA (the ‘Pluckers Mix’ or ‘Galah Mix’) or The Parrot Hotel (the ‘Seed Mix’ or ‘Eckie Mix’) has been excellent in my experience. Mixing this into mashed vegetables and very moist chop, along with powdered or crushed pellets, has been my go-to – the mixture just has to be quite crunchy to start with. Even baked treats made with these seed mixes and banana or chia seed as a binding agent (there are many recipes on the web) has piqued their interest and started the conversion process. The mushier the base ingredients, the better to start with so that the bird really has to DIG for those seeds.

Placing the dreaded black sunflower seeds (in the shell) in foraging boxes and puzzle toys has also helped my birds learn that this seed should rather be seen as a high value treat worth working for, instead of a commonly available dietary component.

Pictured below:

Founding member of the #OneLeggedGang Morgan (Bare eyed cockatoo) with a chop beak.

Our favourite Angry Ice Cream, Orochi (Galah), enjoying his chop.

Seed

Andrea:

Gomez came into our system with a note that he liked apples. He had been on an all-pellet diet, so some serious changes were needed. I added fresh fruits, vegetables, and herbs to his bowl and he went right for it. He is still a little weary of the number of ingredients in his chop but keeping his chop finely chopped and adding extra peas and corn has helped keep him interested in exploring his bowl.

Pictured below:

Gomez (Red masked conure) thinks that this is a very yummy chop recipe.

Seed

Seeing all these different methods there is one common thread. Most people trick their birds into eating the vegetables in their chop mix by mixing the bad seeds into your mix and having them eat the vegetables when they pick up the seeds they like. There is also no “ideal” timeline for how fast your bird should convert over from the bad seed mix. Some birds take to chop immediately and others can take a year or more.

Source: Cheeky Beaks

Dogs love liver – but how much liver is too much – can too much do harm?

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Dog

Dogs love liver – but how much liver is too much – can too much do harm?

Everyone who loves dogs knows that dogs love liver! Treats containing liver abound, recipes for liver “brownies” are perennial favourites (you can find one here on this blog, but there are countless versions) and simple baked treats are a mainstay as “bait” for show dogs and rewards for hard working canines in all kinds of sport and performance work. In home made recipes, some organ meat is always included, to boost nutrient levels, especially Vitamin A, and copper. But how much liver is enough, and is it possible to overdo it? Are all kinds – beef, lamb, chicken, pork – created equal? In this entry we’ll take a little closer look at liver; what it offers your dog, how to prepare it – and why you really can get too much of a good thing.

Let’s start with what’s good about liver, why it should be included in a canine diet, if it’s tolerated.

  1. Liver is nature’s most abundant source of Vitamin A, in the  most bioavailable form for carnivores. (This is why cod liver oil is so different from fish body oil, the vitamin content).
  2. Liver is an excellent source of protein, all the B vitamins, and iron.
  3. Liver is very high in copper, an important nutrient that can be low in home made diets.
  4. Liver contains Vitamin D which supports the immune system, muscles & bone growth
  5. Oh yes, and dogs love the stuff…can’t forget that one.

Look for a supplier that uses rural raised, clean air living, grass fed, hormone free Beef – always buy the best you can afford.

Now, what might some of the issues be?

  1. ​Liver is very high in copper (yes, this can be a problem if fed too much. We want to hit in around the  Recommended Allowance, not go, you know, 20 times above it. That carries its own problems)
  2. Liver is very high in phosphorus, which we like to watch especially with growth diets, seniors and very carefully with kidney disease.
  3. Liver is high in purines, a big no-no for dogs with uric acid stones(especially common in the Dalmatian, and serious stuff)
  4. Although we mention above that what is good is that liver contains Vit. A, we need to be aware that too much Vit. A can poison dogs, creating symptoms that in include tremors, convulsions and peeling skin. 
  5. There is always the risk of salmonella and campylobacter in raw organs which can be particularly harmful to young, old or unwell dogs. 
  6. When a dog has an allergic reaction, it is very often the protein that is the culprit. A good idea is to do an allergy test
  7. Always check with your vet before giving liver to your dog if your dog suffers from any disease. With some diseases, liver can do harm. 

This part can get technical, so bear with me.  I don’t, for the record, believe that every meal has to be “perfectly balanced” but I can easily demonstrate how not paying attention and relying on guesswork will create imbalances- which in turn, can have serious backlash over time. It’s good to know what is in our food – not just the toxins, which many are concerned about, but the nutrients! So to figure out how much liver to add, it’s smart to start off calculating your dog’s phosphorus and copper requirements. Then, calculate how much is in the diet. Often, there will be plenty of phosphorus but low copper.  Add just enough liver to bring the copper into the recommended range or a little higher. The exceptions to this of course, would be a cancer or renal diet where we need to restrict copper, or of course, any dog with urate stones. Just take a pass in those cases.

In a cooked diet, I generally need to add anywhere from 1 – 5 ounces per week, depending on the size of the dog. I did a St. Bernard diet yesterday and we’re using six ounces of liver; the dog’s recommended allowance is 35 mgs, and the recipe has 36. The dog’s allowance for phosphorus is 14,000 mgs; with the liver, we have 14,079.(this is beef liver I’m referring to here).

To calculate your dogs RA for phosphorus, follow the same basic procedure I’ve referred to in past entries; take the bodyweight in kilograms to the power of 0.75, then multiply by 100. That’s the DAILY recommended allowance. To find the copper recommendation, take the metabolic number as above, and multiply by 0.2, for the daily ideal level. Of course, you just X these levels by 7 to get the weekly amounts.

That’s the easy part. Figuring out what’s in the diet is harder. You can use a tool like nutrition data, or you can slog it out using the USDA database. In general, my feeling is one ounce a week for a small dog, 2 – 3 for a medium, 4-6 for large and giant breeds. This is not precision nutrition, but it gives an idea of how much we might use in a recipe. I often suggest to clients they reserve the liver I include in their dog’s recipe, and feed as treats. It doesn’t have to go into the batch, just into the dog. 

Dog

What about different types of liver?

I am often asked if they can be interchanged –  and I think, as treats they can ( given I am recommending not using liver in general all the time) but when we’re looking to meet a dietary requirement, different types of liver have different profiles.  Here’s a peek at four popular varieties:

Beef Liver
​82 grams, cooked weight (this will apply to all varieties)
Calories – 156
Phosphorus- 407 grams (this is substantial, when you consider an equivalent amount of lean muscle meat has about 168 mgs).
Copper– 11.7 mgs  (this too is a lot, consider my 72 kg St. Bernard needed only 5 mgs daily.)
Iron – 5.3 mgs
Zinc – 4.3 mgs

​Calf’s  Liver
​Calories – 155
Phosphorus – 377 mgs
Copper – 12.3 mgs
Iron – 4.19 mgs
Zinc – 9.2 mgs
Not much difference other than more zinc. These two are more or less interchangeable. But then there is…

Chicken Liver
Calories-136
Phosphorus – 332 mgs
Copper – 0.4 mgs
Iron – 9.5 mgs
Zinc – 3.26mgs
This is significant particularly if one is adding liver to amp up the copper. Note the higher iron, too; seems like a small difference, but small dogs can really be affected. Not interchangeable with calf’s of beef liver. And then we have…

Lamb Liver​
Calories– 180
Phosphorus– 344 mgs
Copper -5.8
Iron– 6.79 mgs
Zinc – 6.47 mgs

Other differences include Vitamin A, B12 and selenium. In dietary formulation we learn to pay attention to all of these levels, and aim for an optimal range. Very nutrient -dense foods like liver offer great benefits, but we need to use them properly. Liver is not to be fed as a main protein source, but a garnish, an addition, a booster of the nutrients we’ve highlighted here. Now, as TREATS, I feel you’re ok with a healthy dog, to mix liver types up and use judicious amounts. I like to emphasize heart, muscle meat and eggs, so as to minimize  the chance of driving some nutrient levels out of balance. But in a  recipe, where we are trying to reach specific levels, yes indeed, all liver is not created equal.

Source: Friends of the Dog