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The Eclectus Diet |
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Like people, parrots like variety in their diet. No parrot should be subject d to a seed only or a pellet only diet. That would be like us living on bread and water, day after day. That is not to say seeds and pellets should be eliminated from their diet, they should be just one of the many foods they eat. Mine have 3 dishes each day, one for water, one for dry food (seed & pellet) and one for moist foods .. depending on which one is on the menu for the day .. fruit salad (6 or 8 different fresh fruits), mixed vegetables, boiled eggs, chicken, or bean, rice and pasta mixture. My personal preference in pellets is the Pretty Bird Eclectus Special. I could see a noticeable improvement in their overall appearance when I switched to the Pretty Bird Eclectus Special. It has the highest Vitamin A content of any of the pellets I researched. You will hear all kinds of differing opinions about feeding seeds and pellets.
If there is any one thing that is different about the Eclectus diet from most
other parrots it is their need for foods high in Vitamin A, such as: cooked
sweet potatoes, dried chilli peppers, raw cantaloupe, cooked squash, cooked
broccoli, cooked carrots, or fried beef liver.
Parrots love People Food. In general, if it is healthy for you it will be healthy for your Eclectus as well. Dont feed tea, coffee, alcoholic beverages, junk food, chocolate, or avocados (the pits are believed to be poisonous to parrots).
Your parrot must always have fresh clean drinking water. This may mean changing it a couple of times a day (or more) as Eclectus like to dunk their foods, making stinky soup out of their water.
I dont give my parrots any vitamin supplements as they eat a very healthy
diet every day and shouldnt require any extra vitamins. It is very easy to
overdo the vitamins as I learned, the hard way, when I first got Indy. I fed
her so many dried chilli peppers she developed yellow feathers over a great
deal of her head and body. This made an otherwise gorgeous bird look like the
great speckled bird. It took over a year for the yellow to all moult out.
The only exception to no added supplements is when Indy has double clutched with laying eggs I give her a calcium supplement - just in case.
She always looks absolutely gorgeous, without a feather out of place, even after long stays in the nest box. She comes out of the nest box, does her stretching exercise routine with lots of oooohhhs and aaaaahhs and immediately starts preening her feathers. Shes a very meticulous little lady!