Feed Your Parrot The Best Parrot Food

Growing up, we are introduced to many images of what a parrot should eat.  The commercials will show the ideological pirate parrot happily sitting on the shoulder of an angry and scary pirate that is feeding his parrot a cracker that a particular company is marketing.  There are also commercials that show parrots in cages eating a large bowl of seeds.  This particular marketing ploy could be used to sell the cage itself or a particular kind of parrot food.  Regardless of the final intent, all of us have developed an idea of what parrots eat when in actuality the food that a parrot eats can be much more diverse than is commonly expressed in today’s media.

One thing to consider before buying a parrot is that they do not only eats seeds and crackers.  Parrots can eat virtually anything that a human can eat but can get very sick if it is fed foods like beans, chocolate, and avocados. Usually the best way to feed your parrot is by mimicking the food that it would naturally eat in a rain forest setting.  The best way to do this is to give your parrot a mixture of both a pelleted diet and a natural diet.

The pelleted diet should not be an exclusive diet because extreme heat and processing of the pellets typically will destroy the vitamin content that is central to the well-being and health of your parrot.  Though it does not destroy all of them, using pellets in combination with the natural unprocessed foods, will create an optimal formula for keeping your bird healthy.

Though some of the foods that parrots would naturally eat cannot be easily imported, feeding your parrot a supplement of natural leafy greens like kale and dandelion can help supplement what is missing in the pellets.  Other good natural foods to feed your parrot are green beans, cucumbers, sunflower seeds, carrots, and broccoli.  By mixing these ingredients up each week, along with the pellets, your parrot should have a diet that is close to the natural intake necessary to keep it healthy at all times.

When feeding your parrot, make sure that you give it more food that necessary.  The reason is that parrots can be very picky about what the eat and also very messy.  If your parrot has been on the same diet for some time, and you feel that you need to change its diet to make it more healthy, do so at a very slow pace so that the bird can adjust to its new dietary intake.

Providing fruits to your parrot must be a daily occurrence.  Remember to only give a small amount because fruits can spoil very quickly in the open-air.  Making sure that your parrot eats fresh fruit is also part of maintaining a healthy diet.  You must consider that in the wild, if a parrot eats a piece of fruit, typically it is not on the ground, nor has it been sitting for a couple of days.  Fresh fruit is part of a parrots and natural diet and therefore you must try to always provide fresh fruit for yours.

Your parrot is your friend.  Feed your parrot food that you would only feed your self or your children.  This means that the fruit, vegetables, and any other supplemental foods should be fresh and pesticide free.  By taking these precautions, and by following a specific daily dietary regimen, your parrot will remain healthy and happy all the days of its life.