Caitlin,
I've stayed away from this post because it's been full of angry attacks and mud slinging back and forth but I feel I need to make a few comments. Please dont leave the forums again, at least we can TRY to keep it civil
?
I have read the article you provided, authored by Barbara Heidenreich.
I think you are over-reacting to and over-thinking weight management, as is Barbara. There is a distinct difference between food/weight management and food deprivation - which I think you are missing.
Barbara actually states early on in her article, that she will look on food management from the perspective that it is only used for getting a bird to perform better during training (second paragraph, in Background, p1). She declares that this is food management, and because of this semantics, we should all adopt her thinking towards what the words food management encompass.
Already here, I think she makes a huge mistake!
She talks about other aspects that could be beneficial, such as maintaining a healthy weight, as a diagnostic help to determine the health of a bird and/if or they turn ill, but quickly dismisses these major benefits so that she can continue her bashing. She states and I quote, that they are "separate" topics, and I believe with that premise the whole article is biased to say the least.
I personally use food management, not as a training tool, but because I believe that I should monitor what my parrots eat and prevent them from getting to much of anything or becoming obese, a very regular problem for Amazons, as is liver failure due to free feeding of fat (seeds etc).
Through monitoring my parrots weight, and carefully adapting their diets, Ive been able to find a level in which they get:
A certain amount of pellets each morning, and a different set of veggies/fruit/other stuff each night. This ensures that I support them with the necessary mix of protein, fat and vitamins and minerals. They eat rich amounts of food, are not hungry during the day, and maintain a healthy weight.
This is not dissimilar to how people should do with themselvs, we humans should be much more aware as to what we eat and could do with a little more food management ourselvs (and indeed, since getting birds I am much more aware of this myself and have adapted accordingly, resulting in a stable healthy weight and I feel a lot more healthy. Not a bad thing, no?
What I think you are reacting to is that a parrot should be deprived of food to perform training better. I can agree to a certain point, you should NOT starve a parrot to get it to perform tricks better. You should use food management as a tool to keep your friend healthy!
On the other hand, consider this, why not do training just before dinner to increase motivation? Provided you have a good diet, maintain your parrot in a healthy state and at a healthy weight, why not use the fact that a parrot is more motivated before dinner than after? I see no issue with it.
I dont always do this myself, my two are so motivated by treats that it doesnt matter if I train before, during or after dinner
, they dont get seeds from anything else than training so they are always motivated without taking the food management into account.