Avian Conversations

(July/August 2000)

by: Tom Riggs and Ross Bishop

Avian Nutrition

Before we begin this next section, we want to acknowledge the considerable help we have received in preparing this material from Dr. Alicia McWatters, Ph.D., C.N.C.  Dr. McWatters holds a doctoral degree in nutrition and is a certified nutritional consultant.  She has written a book on natural bird care entitled "A Guide to a Naturally Healthy Bird" and is a co-author of the book "Super Nutrition for Animals! Birds Too!."  Both are published by Safe Goods Publishing Company.  Dr. McWatters runs a private holistic avian health care consulting practice.  She provides long distance telephone consultation and in home consultation visits to local bird owners.  She teaches her clients about natural avian nutrition, feeding, and natural healing methods.  Herbal medicine, homeopathy, and vitamin and mineral therapy are a few of the natural modalities she incorporates into her nutritional healing programs.

Although I did not know this when we began to work with her, Dr. McWatters resides nearby in the mountains of New Mexico with her family and five parrots: a Congo African Grey, a Caique, a Solomon Island Eclectus, an Umbrella Cockatoo and an African Red-Bellied Parrot.  She is a former breeder of Pionus Parrots and African Greys.  Dr. McWatters has a Nutritional Q&A column on-line where she answers questions on avian nutrition and natural health.  Her web page, at http://www.parrothouse.com/McWatter.html is a storehouse of good bird care advice.

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Ross: If we say to our reader's that a bird's nutrition is important, the words are likely to go in one ear and out the other. But, if we tell them that most bird illnesses and deaths are the result of poor diet, they might pay attention. It isn't that birds are necessarily starving but rather that an unbalanced diet leads to other problems like organ failure, cancer or immune system suppression that eventually cost the bird it's life.

One big problem is that there is not a great deal of solid information on finch & softbill nutrition and some of what we do have, conflicts. Most of what we know is inferred from studies done on poultry. There is almost no research done on the nutritional needs of finches and softbills. The major part of the pet bird market is occupied by hookbills and that is where the research money (what little there is) goes.

Manufacturers and distributors of prepared diets and supplements have sometimes been guilty of stretching the truth or shading the facts to get us to purchase their products. You have to understand though, it wasn't very long ago that birds were fed strictly seed and water or milk soaked bread! We have come a long way.  What we know about bird diet has largely been gained by individual experience, and although this is very valuable knowledge, it is not always reliable. But, it's the best we have. Considering that there are about 8,500 bird species and only about 5,000 mammal species you'd think the scientific community would have shown more interest in birds over the years. Oh well . . .

Tom: I am going to start off by saying that no finch lives by seed alone.  I am a mixed flight breeder, and in all my flights there are softbills or nectarines in with the finches. And I am absolutely amazed at what my birds will eat besides the basic seed mixtures. As an example, my Scarlet Chested Grass Parakeets, besides their seed mixtures, and besides their soft food, which consists of chopped apple, vegetables like broccoli, carrots, zucchini and brown rice, take, mealworms, nectar, grubs, and greens. I do not have a finch, including Gouldians, which does not take live food. Mealworms mostly, and I use the mini mealworms for all my birds except my larger softbills.  I think that anyone who tries to keep finches without live food, and I include the Australian birds here, like Gouldians, without live food is doing a disservice to the bird and the diet is really not complete.

Ross: I do not profess to be a nutritional expert, and what I am going to say here is based on my own research, experience, personal bias and the help of some fellow aviculturist's who are far more knowledgeable than I.  I hope that others who are knowledgeable on the subject will comment on what we provide here and offer their own opinions and ideas. I am also indebted to Dr. Adrian Gallagher, D.V.M. of the Parrot Society of Australia for his article, "Avian Nutrition Part I" which can be found at http://parrotsociety.org.au/articles/art_021.htm (remember this is an article about parrots, and there are important differences in the needs of parrots, finches and softbills ). I am also indebted to NFSS & AFA members Kathy Dezern, Carolyn Swicegood, Liz Wilson and as you will read later, contributions from some of NFSS's most successful breeders.

In many ways a bird's dietary requirements are similar to ours. But there are also some important differences. Birds are calorie furnaces. Their high metabolism means that their proportional intake of fats and carbohydrates is much higher than ours. If you had their metabolism and exercise regimen you'd be eating all day and would have trouble replacing what you were burning off (sometimes I think that would be a gift but, oh well! . . . ).

Hummingbirds sometimes have to semi-hibernate at night because their caloric intake is so high they would actually starve to death by morning.  Birds tend to eat to satisfy their caloric needs and this will often not match their dietary requirements. Seed, for example, is a high calorie food but it must be only part of a balanced diet. Seed has been a favorite target of companies who want to sell supplements and fortified products, and there are limitations to seed, as there are with any single food. It is important for all of us to know what those limits are - in any food we serve, and to correct for them with a more balanced offering.

There is a tendency amongst some aviculturist's to try to correct for these deficiencies through chemical supplements, but simply pouring on the supplements isn't a good idea. Although you may correct an imbalance, supplements do not act the same way in the body as natural materials do.  Excesses of some of these chemicals can cause serious complications for the bird. You must be careful with them. Feeding birds is an art, and one that must be studied.

WATER

We'll be talking about the various dietary components here, but I want to begin with a short comment on water and the importance of good water.

Water makes up 2/3rds of a bird's body weight and is contained in every cell of the body. Water plays a key role in every bodily function and good water quality is essential for good health. Our tap water quality today is declining and declining rapidly. We are finding lots of heavy metal, pesticide, fungicide, herbicide and fertilizer runoff residue in water supplies and in increasingly larger quantities. Agricultural runoff, lawn chemicals, and pollutants from coal fired power plants add a lot heavy metal toxicity to the environment that gets into our groundwater. We drink it and it is also absorbed by plants and is passed along through the food chain.

Plus, old corroding metal water pipes in many communities add massively to the metals problem.  Water filters have become very inexpensive these days and they are an excellent investment for both your health and the health of your birds.  Most of the experts feel that reverse osmosis is the best filtration system for the price.

There is an argument that filtration removes some beneficial things from the water, and this is true. In removing harmful organisms and metals it also removes beneficial organism as well as minerals such as iron, zinc, calcium and magnesium. For my money a little additional mineral supplementation (mineral water) and an occasional serving of yogurt is worth the price to keep the pesticides, fertilizers, industrial wastes and other toxins away from my family and my birds.

Some people chemically treat their water. Chemically treating water can clear up bacterial problems, but it also kills the useful organisms. But, treating water does not deal with dissolved chemicals like pesticides, herbicides, fungicides, industrial waste or heavy metals.

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Last modified: January 07, 2004
Copyright © 1999 National Finch and Softbill Society