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Trying to Figure Out What to Feed my Cockatiels.

Talk about bird illnesses and other bird health related issues. Seeds, pellets, fruits, vegetables and more. Discuss what to feed your birds and in what quantity. Share your recipe ideas.

Trying to Figure Out What to Feed my Cockatiels.

Postby CherryTiel » Mon Sep 09, 2019 9:09 am

Hi! I am not a new parrot owner, and have had some in the past. I'm not exactly sure how my care holds up nowadays though so I'm willing to take critique. So anyway. I had my previous birds on Zupreem pellet diets. The only thing I changed was starting them on the Fruity rainbow coloured pellets to the "natural" stuff. Mostly because it caused their poo to be crazy colours. I kept feeding the same brand though with no issue.
Now my main concern is if Zupreem is a suitable long term diet. I do also feed veggies and fruit to supplement them and give them enrichment. If I should change my brand of food choice please let me know! I'm sure there must be a brand a bit better than them.
I also wanted to know if feeding scrambled eggs with nothing added is still recommended today? It does seem like a lot of protein but I'm sure someone knows more than me. Thanks so much for reading! :thumbsup:
:greycockatiel: Cherry :greycockatiel: Cassidy
CherryTiel
Parakeet
 
Gender: This parrot forum member is female
Posts: 8
Location: Oxfordshire, England
Number of Birds Owned: 2
Types of Birds Owned: Cockatiels
Flight: Yes

Re: Trying to Figure Out What to Feed my Cockatiels.

Postby Pajarita » Tue Sep 10, 2019 9:34 am

Hi, Cherry and feathered friends! Welcome to the forum. We've all had to review our past birds diets because what we considered good before, we now find out it wasn't good after all. Pellets is one of those things. We thought they were the best we could feed them but it turns out, they were not, are not and never will be... especially for aviary granivore species like tiels (too much protein, too dry, too processed, inferior ingredients, soy, man-made vitamins/minerals, no phytonutrients, etc).

Personally, I swear by gloop. I've been doing research on parrots natural diets since 1994 (and still do pretty much every day) and have found that gloop is, at least for now, the best dietary option for them. Why? Because you can monitor and fine-tune the amount of protein according to the species, it has high moisture, high natural fiber, is very nutritious, it can be doctored to add supplements to it (I add liver tonics and cleansers), low processing, human grade ingredients, no soy, no artificial nothing, food-derived vitamins/minerals and phytonutrients. Perfect food for parrots!

My budgies (and the tiels I used to have) get gloop and raw produce for breakfast and a budgie mix for dinner and I would use the same for tiels. One would think that a cockatiel seed mix would be better for them but the greatest majority of the tiel mixes have sunflower seeds and I would feed them to a tiel. BTW, my tiels loved gloop!

As to eggs - a complete NO NO! Your observation that eggs have too much protein is 100% correct!
But they also have a huge amount of fat and bad cholesterol -which herbivores (like most of our companion and aviary parrot species) cannot consume because, as animal protein is not part of their natural diet (there isn't a single species of parrot that has eggs as part of their natural diet), they never consume anything that has bad cholesterol, hence, nature did not give them a natural mechanism to get rid of the excess so it ends up stored as fatty nodules in their liver (hepatic lipidosis - aka fatty liver disease).
Pajarita
Norwegian Blue
 
Gender: This parrot forum member is female
Posts: 18701
Location: NW Pa
Number of Birds Owned: 30
Types of Birds Owned: RoseBreasted too, CAG, DoubleYellowHead Amazon, BlueFront Amazon, YellowNape Amazon, Senegal, African Redbelly, Quaker, Sun Conure, Nanday, BlackCap Caique, WhiteBelly Caique, PeachFace lovebird, budgies,
Flight: Yes

Re: Trying to Figure Out What to Feed my Cockatiels.

Postby CherryTiel » Wed Sep 11, 2019 5:46 am

Thank you so much for the updated information. I have already bought pellets and will use them sparingly instead of their main diet.
So how can I make this gloop stuff? And how can I convince my birds to actually eat it? I can get them on pellets easy, but I'm worried they wont see it as food. Please give me some recipes to try! I'm very much into cooking and making my feather babies their own meals would make me so happy. Thank you! :danicing:
:greycockatiel: Cherry :greycockatiel: Cassidy
CherryTiel
Parakeet
 
Gender: This parrot forum member is female
Posts: 8
Location: Oxfordshire, England
Number of Birds Owned: 2
Types of Birds Owned: Cockatiels
Flight: Yes

Re: Trying to Figure Out What to Feed my Cockatiels.

Postby Pajarita » Wed Sep 11, 2019 9:38 am

There are several recipes of gloop right here on this forum but, basically, gloop is a dish of cooked whole grains mixed with chopped veggies. Thankfully, nowadays, one can find whole grains in virtually any regular supermarket whereas, years ago, we had to order them online from specialized stores. I use kamut, hulled barley, spelt, wheat, oat groats, red and black rice and I can find all of them, except for the oat groats, in Shoprite. I get the oat groats from Whole Foods but you can use steel cut oats (aka Irish Oatmeal) that you can also get at the supermarket (only do not cook them along with the other whole grains because they will become mush, just add them to the cooked grains as soon as you turn off the heat under the pot, mix them into the other grains and cover the pot for about 20 minutes or so - the heat and moisture in the grains will cook them enough). Also, make sure the grains do not 'open up' because the birds like them better when they are whole and separated from one another. When you put the grains in the pot, add a lot of water, bring to a boil then allow it to simmer for 25 or 30 minutes (keep on checking to make sure the water does not disappear and your grains burn at the bottom of the pot) only, this will make them 'al dente'. Cook the rices separately (you can add brown lentils to this mix, if you wish) and cook them thoroughly but, again, don't allow them to became mush. Once you have the grain/rice/lentils cooked, mixed and cooled, add frozen chopped veggies to it (do not thaw the veggies, they need to stay frozen until right before you serve the gloop to retain maximum nutrition). I use chopped broccoli (make sure it's the chopped kind and not the florets or the pieces because, if you don't, they will pick it and throw it out without eating it), peas, carrots (the diced kind, not the one in round slices), corn (they LOVE corn), butternut squash (the diced, not the mashed) and cooked sweet potatoes (you can boil, bake or nuke them in the skin, then peel and cut in pieces). Add a bit of flax seed, a bit of sesame seed (only this time of the year and until the equinox) and voila! Gloop! Split the lot into daily portions and freeze them. Then, every evening you take out the portion for the following day and allow it to thaw OR you can thaw it in the microwave in the morning before you serve it.

Put the gloop spread out on a white, disposable paper plate at the bottom of the cage (tiels are partial ground foragers and would instinctively go to ground to eat it) and watch them go for it! Now, the trick to transition them easily is to take out the seed mix given for dinner the night before once they are asleep and put the gloop out at dawn (because that is the time they eat in the wild) along with whatever raw produce you are going to use for the day. I've only had a couple of tiels that actually ate fruits but they all loved their leafy greens and ate all the veggies in the gloop so, all in all, even if they don't eat any raw fruits, they are still getting excellent nutrition. Mind you, you do have to supplement them with a multivitamin/mineral twice or three times a week because they cannot produce their own vit D3 without daily direct sunlight exposure.

And don't worry if they don't eat it the first day, just leave it there all day, take it away in the evening and replace it with their seed mix dinner - this way, they won't starve but they will realize that the gloop is their breakfast and once they try it, they will love it. I promise you.
Pajarita
Norwegian Blue
 
Gender: This parrot forum member is female
Posts: 18701
Location: NW Pa
Number of Birds Owned: 30
Types of Birds Owned: RoseBreasted too, CAG, DoubleYellowHead Amazon, BlueFront Amazon, YellowNape Amazon, Senegal, African Redbelly, Quaker, Sun Conure, Nanday, BlackCap Caique, WhiteBelly Caique, PeachFace lovebird, budgies,
Flight: Yes

Re: Trying to Figure Out What to Feed my Cockatiels.

Postby CherryTiel » Wed Sep 11, 2019 1:02 pm

Thank you so much for the detailed info. I'll add some stuff to my grocery list! ;) Luckily I live with a health nut so we have almost every grain you can think of. Is white rice ok? We also have quiona. I would guess those could be good to use as well? I was also wondering if Chia seeds are good. I thought it might be a good idea to sprinkle them on fruit to get them to try it.
:greycockatiel: Cherry :greycockatiel: Cassidy
CherryTiel
Parakeet
 
Gender: This parrot forum member is female
Posts: 8
Location: Oxfordshire, England
Number of Birds Owned: 2
Types of Birds Owned: Cockatiels
Flight: Yes

Re: Trying to Figure Out What to Feed my Cockatiels.

Postby Pajarita » Thu Sep 12, 2019 8:29 am

No white rice (all starch and little nutrition). No quinoa or chia (too high in protein for tiels).
Pajarita
Norwegian Blue
 
Gender: This parrot forum member is female
Posts: 18701
Location: NW Pa
Number of Birds Owned: 30
Types of Birds Owned: RoseBreasted too, CAG, DoubleYellowHead Amazon, BlueFront Amazon, YellowNape Amazon, Senegal, African Redbelly, Quaker, Sun Conure, Nanday, BlackCap Caique, WhiteBelly Caique, PeachFace lovebird, budgies,
Flight: Yes

Re: Trying to Figure Out What to Feed my Cockatiels.

Postby CherryTiel » Fri Sep 13, 2019 8:29 am

Ok cool! Thanks for the tips. I'm gonna buy some 100% whole grain spaghetti sometime soon as well. I've seen cockatiels eat that and it seems ok!
:greycockatiel: Cherry :greycockatiel: Cassidy
CherryTiel
Parakeet
 
Gender: This parrot forum member is female
Posts: 8
Location: Oxfordshire, England
Number of Birds Owned: 2
Types of Birds Owned: Cockatiels
Flight: Yes

Re: Trying to Figure Out What to Feed my Cockatiels.

Postby Pajarita » Fri Sep 13, 2019 9:58 am

Yes, parrots do enjoy whole grain pasta but make sure it's just offered as a special treat and not very often because it's a processed food with not too much nutrition.
Pajarita
Norwegian Blue
 
Gender: This parrot forum member is female
Posts: 18701
Location: NW Pa
Number of Birds Owned: 30
Types of Birds Owned: RoseBreasted too, CAG, DoubleYellowHead Amazon, BlueFront Amazon, YellowNape Amazon, Senegal, African Redbelly, Quaker, Sun Conure, Nanday, BlackCap Caique, WhiteBelly Caique, PeachFace lovebird, budgies,
Flight: Yes


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