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It is a sad fact that the majority of pet parrots are fed on nutritionally deficient diets. There are several factors that encourage this to happen but these are mainly due to the ignorance of many bird owners and also owners of pet-shops. The majority of pet psittaciforms are given a seed-based diet to eat.
Seeds fall into two categories: sunflower seed, peanuts and pine nuts are large seeds that contain a lot of oil. Small seeds such as safflower, hemp, millet and canary seed contain mainly carbohydrate. Seeds are high calorie, low in calcium with a poor Ca/P ratio, low in most vitamins, have either low protein content or a limiting essential amino acid, usually lysine or methionine. Seed based diets have little to recommend them nutritionally but they are easy to store and do not deteriorate visually. They are also universally attractive diet to many parrots.
In many pet shops the seed quality is poor, is stored for an unspecified time and in unspecified circumstance.. [More]
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