Hello and good evening to everyone,
I really hope someone here will be able to give me some pointers and help me make sense of all the conflicting information I've been gathering for the past 3 HOURS on this beautiful monster we call the Internet...
Bit of context first: I'm the parront of an almost seven year-old little female GCC (she's been with us for close to 6 and half years now ) named Lily. Now this past week-end we had a health scare with her and brought her to a vet on Tuesday (sort of an avian vet, in my country they're called NAC vets, and deal with small mammals, even reptiles sometimes, as well, though the vet in question definitely had special qualifications in avian medicine) to make sure nothing was amiss (she's gotten better in the meantime). She checked her out, asked us questions about her diet, and said she was fine. No swelling on her body, her wings in perfect order, her plumage nice and colourful, etc... And indeed, Lily is back to her old self, thank the gods.
Now, I'm always trying to improve my baby dinosaur's living conditions, and especially her diet. I asked questions about pellets to the vet, and she said pellets could be a good addition, although she also values seeds because they provide stimulation for the parrot. I made it clear I shunned peanuts and sunflower seeds (the latter of which I keep as training treats), which she approved of. I also need to give my baby more vegetables, and I've already favourited a couple of chop recipes from this forum, or another, and made a list of good, in-season candidates I need to buy.
Where I'm becoming really confused is when it comes to seeds vs. pellets... I've spent the last few hours reading articles, blog posts, and forum posts, on the topic. This forum is the only one where I've seen users advise against pellets. Other forums advise a 70-80% base diet of pellets, which sounds, quite frankly, crazy to me. I've also seen the numbers 60% grains/seeds, 40% fruit+veg mentioned a couple of times on different bird blogs. From what I know of GCC's diet in the wild, it mainly consists of buds, fruit, and wild grains, and I really don't like the idea of imposing so much artificial food on her (neither do I like it for myself, lol), especially since she's never eaten pellets before (believe it or not but you can't really find pellets easily in pet stores where I live, I'd have to order it online, which is fine).
Also keeping in mind that she's out of her cage pretty much all day, every day (well, except on Mondays when the cleaning lady comes), from around 9:30 am to 8:30 pm, she moves around A LOT. She definitely doesn't lack for exercise, which I've read does help to counteract the fats found in seeds and grains.
Based on what I've been reading so far, these are steps I'm planning to take:
1) Upping her veggie intake, and serving the raw/fresh food in the morning, leaving it until the evening. I've read that a serving of 1-2 tbsp is good...?
2) Having on hand a home-prepared seed/grain mix, from produce sourced from our local organic co-op. When I transitioned to vegetarianism, I had to read up on grains and seeds that are healthy, so I'm already familiar with a few good candidates such as chia, flax and hemp (in fact Lily likes to pick the latter two from my almost daily fruit + greek yoghurt bowl), as well as chia and millet seeds. The lists I've seen also include: buckwheat, whole wheat, barley, spelt, rye.
I'm definitely planning on trying sprouting as well, to mix it up.
Now, my questions:
a) Seed mix should be served... in the evening, then? How much? 1 tbsp? Do germinated seeds/grains count as fresh produce, served as such or, well, seeds?
b) And so, what about the pellets? Should I even bother at this point? I can probably get my hands on Harrison's mix, I've seen users on here favour TOPS, and maybe I could get that from a UK vendor (I'm from mainland Europe). If I do get pellets, how do I proportion them in relation to the veggie+fruit, and seed/grain mix? Should I serve them with the seeds, in the evening? Alternate one day seed, one day pellets? 1 tbsp? 2? (And all of this after acclimation, of course).
Additional info (for thoroughness, hehe): Lily gets half a walnut, no more, everyday, at 6 pm (she really, and I mean, really, enjoys it). Though she rarely eats all of it (they are notoriously wasteful little critters, after all). And I allow her 1-2 sips of clementine juice in the morning, from my daily glass, before I drink the rest.
She also gets little nibbles from whatever my family and I are eating throughout the day (unless it's something toxic, obviously, I'll even put her back in her cage when we're preparing avocado, just to be on the safe side). That includes whole grain bread, butter, jam, plain yoghurt, fruit of various kinds, cheese slices, veggie, egg. Although I really try my best to shoo her when it's dairy products, so consumption is kept to the appropriate minimum. She currently weighs ~72-73 g.
And that's it. I apologise in advance for the long post. I really wanted to be thorough and precise, and just want what's best for my baby, as I'm sure all the parronts here can understand! She's pretty healthy so far, but if she can be even healthier that would be even better!