From: chuq@Apple.COM (Chuq Von Rospach)
Newsgroups: rec.pets.birds
Subject: Re: Why pellets?
Date: 6 Oct 92 16:54:43 GMT
Organization: Apple Computer Inc., Cupertino, CA

slybz@cc.usu.edu writes:
>Ever since I've started reading this group, I've heard people extolling the
>virtues of pelleted birdie food.  I'd never heard of or even seen pellets
>before (I still haven't seen them!).  What do the poor birds who are left in
>the wild do?  What do they eat?  Are they all chronically unhealthy because
>they can't get pellets?

No. Birds in the wild are generally healthy because they're chronic foragers
that eat a wide range of foods that are avaialble, from yummy yummy leaves
and fruits to icky ucky road kill.

In a kept environment, that wide range of foods are generally not available,
even if the normal seed diet is supplemented with fresh foods. In the wild,
few birds rely on seeds for the majority of their diets. Seeds, even when
fresh, are usually not nutritionally complete and can be very high in fats,
especially sunflower (Imagine living on a diet that is 50% french fries.
Would you do well?) Beyond that, a lot of seed available in the bird market
isn't fresh and has lost much of the nutrition it started with.

This ignores the reality that even if you feed a bird a wide variety of
seeds that's relatively fresh and balanced, they're likely to pick and choose
through the dish and waht they eat won't be as balanced as what they're
fed.

Pellets are an attempt to come up with a staple food that is as close to
what the birds need nutrtionally as you can get, since the birds don't have
the option of hopping from tree to tree. Most are grain oriented rather than
seed oriented, which is closer to a real bird diet, anyway. Seed diets are
an artificial construct of convenience, not a reflection of what a bird
really eats in the while -- especially seed diets based on sunflower or
safflower. Their advantage is that they're easy to produce, store and feed,
not that they're particularly healthy.

>I've had my amazon for 15 years now.  It is one of the best looking birds I
>have ever seen.  Its plumage is bright, its eyes are bright; the feathers are
>all well-formed; and the bird is very active and curious all around.  This poor
>bird has had nothing but a diet of lots of fresh fruit, vegetables, nuts and
>sunflower seeds for all of its 15 years.  Why should I go to the expense and
>bother of trying to change its diet now, when what it eats now seems to work
>quite well?

Maybe you shouldn't. If you're supplementing as much as you say you are,
then the diet may well be complete. On the other hand, dumping the 90% of
the sunflower and switching to pellets will make it that much better. Most
birds aren't given the diet variety you talk about and end up living on 70%
or more seed, which leaves them chronically short on A and B vitamins, many
times E, and eating diets where the fat content can range to 50% or more.
In really bad cases, chronic protein deficiencies, immune system problems,
kidney failure and other various niceties.

>Please don't take this as sarcasm or a flame, I truly do not understand,
>especially when many of the posts I read on this group talk about birds eating
>pizza, scrambled eggs and other foods I can't imagine would be terribly kind to
>a bird's health, let along digestive system!

Small amounts of anything aren't very harmful (besides, you have to remember
that bird's digestive system is different than ours, so some things that are
bad for us aren't for them, and vice versa). What we're talking about is not
the occasional egg, but a chronic, long-term dietary problem. With concerted
effort, you can take a seed diet and make it healthy and complete, but if
you swappe dout the seed for pellets, you could put in the same work and
make it even healthier. And frankly, if you have a bird that eats such a
wide range of foods to start, switching them to pellets probably won't be as
hard as you might think. 


-- 
Chuq "IMHO" Von Rospach, ESD Support & Training (DAL/AUX) =+= Member, SFWA
  chuq@apple.com | GEnie: MAC.BIGOT | ALink:CHUQ =+= Editor, OtherRealms


Newsgroups: rec.pets.birds