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Re: Newly Adopted Blue and Gold

Posted by GreyLady on 2/11/10
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    On 2/10/10, new york wrote:
    > I recently adopted a blue and gold macaw. She came from a
    > nice older husband and wife, the wifes mother was moving in
    > with them, she is up in age and they were looking for a home
    > for the macaw. She seems to be adjusting with me, plays with
    > her toys, talks alot. The only thing im concerned with is
    > her diet consisted of only peanuts, almonds, bananas,and
    > stuffing. Thats it. No parrot food, no fruits and
    > vegetables, should i continue with this diet? She looks
    > healthy but cmon I think she needs alot more in nutrition.
    > She hardly drinks her water, dont know why. I just need some
    > friendly suggestions. Shes 10 yrs old and the previous
    > owners had her for 6 of these yrs.

    You didn't say anything about how much previous parrot
    experience you have so excuse me if I tell you things you
    already know. First off, you definitely need to get her on a
    better diet. But it will have to be done gradually and
    probably with a lot of patience. They won't change their
    eating habits just because we start giving them different and
    additional food items and it's not possible to "starve" a
    bird into eating what we want it to have. You will have to
    continue giving her some of what she is used to but start
    right away adding new things to her bowl. She needs plenty
    of fresh vegetables, fruits, leafy greens and lots of other
    people foods. She can eat almost anything you eat but there
    are some toxic exceptions so always check things out before
    offering her anything new. Almonds and bananas are good.
    Peanuts and stuffing is not. Those are the two things you
    will want to gradually reduce as she starts eating new
    items. If you are not familiar with toxic foods, it's easy
    to do a search on safe and toxic parrot foods. For starters,
    get her some walnuts, scramble some eggs, offer some pasta,
    cooked and raw. Cooked brown rice, plain oatmeal, and so
    on. At first you may have to crack the walnuts so she
    realizes there is something good inside. My Macaw
    particularly likes spaghetti with just a tiny bit of sauce.
    Barely enough to make it pink but don't use a sauce with
    mushrooms, onions or olives. He also loves his scrambled
    eggs. I use olive oil for the eggs. YOu can also try hard
    boiled. That is just a very small list of things to get you
    started. Also, it's wise to have a gram scale so you can
    keep a weight log of your bird. We should do that anyway but
    it's especially important during any diet change. Good luck
    with it. BTW, work her off the peanuts as soon as possible.
    It we are not very careful about the source and quality of
    them, they can end up being dangerous. That's because they
    grow underground and the shell can harbor the spores that
    cause aspergillosis, especially dangerous for Macaws due to
    how extra sensitive their respiratory systems can be.