Expert: Chrys Meatyard - 11/12/2006

Question
Hi there,

My name is Krystal, and I’m the proud owner of a 9-month-old Nanday conure named Amitha (Amie for short), who is a very picky eater. I've tried introducing him to new foods such as fruits and vegetables, even the occasional pieces of bread and macaroni, but he just turns up his beak to them. He especially doesn't like his cuttlebone, which I’ve heard is a great source of calcium. I've tried introducing him to different colored, and different flavored cuttlebones hoping he would find one to his liking, but alas it was only a dream, as they remained his least favorite item in the cage. I began to worry that he was going out of his way to avoid the cuttlebone by walking around it completely, so I removed it from his cage, all the while worrying about how I would be able to get enough calcium in his diet.

Recently while having my breakfast with Amie perched on my shoulder, he attempted to fly with his clipped wings, but was unsuccessful, and fell off my shoulder, and landed flat on his back directly on top of my stack of lukewarm pancakes (which luckily were not covered in syrup at the time). I checked that he was not harmed, and then left him to explore the table as I began to clean up the mess of feather-covered pancakes. As I returned to the table something amazing had happened, Amie had stumbled upon my mug of vitamin D milk, and being the curious bird he stuck his head right in, and to my great surprise he loved it. My question is since he refuses to eat his cuttlebones, is it all right to give him daily drinks of milk, or is it not healthy for conures to have milk? Please Help :(


Answer
Hi, Krystal.  Thanks for posting!  What a cute story!

Parrots are lactose intolerant, i.e., their bodies can't process (metabolize) dairy products, including milk.  You shouldn't really give it to him, but I confess, I've given some of my pet birds a sip or two of my milk shakes now and again.  However, on a daily/regular basis, no, don't give it to him.  If he refuses his cuttlebone, a lot of times this means a bird doesn't need any supplemental calcium in their diet.  However, this depends on what type of diet a bird is on.  Any bird can be converted to a good diet...you just have to know how to do it!  A bird will eat whatever it becomes accustomed to eating, once it recognizes those foods as food (a bird won't eat anything it doesn't recognize as food until it learns that this new stuff is something to eat).  Parrots love to eat and they love variety if given the opportunity to have variety.  You may have to play around with food until you find the way your conure likes to have it served, i.e., some like food sliced, some like their food chopped, some like it shredded, some like diced, some like their food hanging, some like it between the cage wire, some like it in a dish, etc., etc.  

You can provide calcium in other forms also...dark green/deep orange veggies, dark green leafy items such as mustard greens, kale, spinach, you can make corn bread for example and cook crushed egg shells in the mix.  You can also crush egg shells (clean and dry them first), bake them for a few minutes, and serve.  Also, take a cuttlebone, use a butter knife and scrape the cuttlebone powder into a dish.  Then sprinkle the cuttlebone powder into those pancakes he landed in!  I'll bet your conure would love some pancakes with a very little taste of syrup and cuttlebone powder mixed in.  Your conure might not even need supplemental calcium...is there a reason you think he does need supplemental calcium?  If your conure is on an all-seed diet, he needs a complete overhaul of his diet.  Seed is high in fat and low in nutrition.  If you feed (and he eats) a varied healthy diet, you wouldn't need to supplement calcium.

Come back with any questions.

Chrys