Building an Avian Nutrition Foundation

Helping clients switch their birds to a pelleted-based diet can prevent deficiencies.

By Sam Vaughn, DVM, Dipl. ABVP (Avian Practice)

The veterinary and pet bird industry has provided us with many superb diets for birds over the last 18 years.
When I first started avian practice there was only one pelleted diet on the market and most bird owners were feeding seeds, period. Then came the "phase" of supplementing seed diets with fresh fruits, and vegetables, and this was not a bad phase; the main goal of this concept was to prevent Vitamin A deficiency.

The Role of Vitamin A

Vitamin A deficiency was very common in birds until the late 1980s and early '90s. Vitamin A is necessary for the integrity of intracellular tight junctions and epithelial integrity.
One can diagnose this deficiency early from a simple choanal Gram's stain as part of the routine annual examination. Epithelial cells from the choanal slit appear hyperplastic, stain with more intensity, become very angulated and have sharp edges. You can see this long before the bird develops physical problems. Over time, these cells develop into sterile abscesses that are striking upon oral examination. They can occur anywhere in the oral cavity and most commonly are on the edges of the choanal slit and the lateral sides of the tongue. Sometimes they occur just on the edge of the glottis. They can become large enough to interfere with respiration by blocking airflow through the glottis or by blocking airflow through the choanal slit.
These cases often present as respiratory disease and are frequently misdiagnosed as primary bacterial disease or chlamydiosis. While they are often secondarily infected with opportunistic Gram-negative bacteria, they do not respond to antibiotic therapy as the sole treatment.
Vitamin A deficiency is easily prevented by encouraging clients to feed a commercially available pelleted ration instead of seeds as the primary nutrient.
Before pellets existed practitioners pushed people to feed lots of fruits and vegetables to supply enough Vitamin A to prevent this deficiency. But somewhere along the way we went overboard. Some birds came in underweight and in poor feather, because so much of their diet was fruits and vegetables; protein, fat and calcium became deficient.

Protein Deficiency

Feathers are 90 percent protein, so quality protein is vital for optimal feather health. Meat is a good source of protein and many pet parrots readily consume meats, especially if their owner is eating meat and offers it to them. Birds are highly social and love to eat whatever their owner is having.
Once again owners began to supplement other foods to try and make up for the lack of protein. Some owners can play this game of Russian roulette and keep their birds healthy for many years. But it is indeed quite a job and requires a lot of time to prepare certain foods that the birds will eat to maintain health. Protein requirements are best met by feeding a pelleted diet.
Other good sources of protein include beef, chicken, lamb, black beans and whole egg.
It is important to expand on the whole egg concept because feeding only egg white or only egg yolk can create certain problems. When preparing eggs, it is best to boil them for 15 minutes to kill any threat of Salmonella in the egg.
I advise clients who must feed cooked foods to their birds to include the shell when offering the properly prepared hard-boiled egg. The shell is an excellent source of calcium.

Calcium Deficiency

Calcium in the diet is another issue in avian nutrition. Calcium deficiency can and does occur in neonates and is evidenced by weakness and lethargy. Also, metabolic bending fractures of the legs and wings can occur and it is not uncommon to notice an S-shaped deformity to the keel (sternum). When birds are fed appropriate commercial hand-feeding formulas these deformities are practically nonexistent.
Calcium deficiency occurs in adult birds, as well. The subtle dietary deficiency sneaks up on unsuspecting bird owners and then havoc follows.
Recently an umbrella cockatoo more than 20-years-old (therefore, imported) presented to my practice. The bird was a male so egg laying wasn't an issue, of course. Egg-laying often incites severe hypocalcemia in malnourished females.
Since the time of importation the bird had been on a seed diet supplemented with lots of good fruits and vegetables, and the occasional pasta and some rice.
The bird was barely able to perch and both wings were drooped. Radiographs revealed 12 metabolic fractures. Despite all our efforts, we were unable to save the patient.
The owner was shocked that the bird had a diet problem because she had been feeding what some bird books, pet stores and experts on the Internet had told her was a good diet.
The client asked how the bird could have survived this long if the diet was the problem. Birds are tough; they are much tougher than any of us think.
This bird had managed to live without hypocalcemia by doing that little calcium dance of drawing enough calcium from the bone to satisfy immediate metabolic functions such as cardiac muscle contraction and all other muscle contraction. Then when ingesting enough calcium from the right green vegetable to increase blood calcium levels, the bird would store some calcium in the bone.
Many times blood calcium in these birds will be normal because the body mobilizes calcium from the bone to keep blood levels adequate.
Dietary counseling could have saved this patient. I maintain that all veterinarians can help birds if they will just teach the owners how to switch to a pelleted-based diet safely, which can be the most challenging thing an owner can undertake.

Switching to a Pelleted-based Diet

Before switching a patient to a pelleted-based diet, I always require a physical exam, CBC and Gram's stain.
The most important rule is to buy a good gram scale. Ask the client to weigh the bird for one week before starting the conversion to become accustomed to the bird's normal weight fluctuations. Suggest the owner weigh the bird at the same time each morning before feeding. This is to keep the client from panicking. If you weigh an Amazon-sized bird right after a really good morning feeding, the bird will weigh 20 to 30 grams more than it did early that morning because of food in the crop and proventriculus. If the owner weighs the bird right after the meal one day then weighs early the next morning, the owner will be alarmed that the bird lost 20 to 30 grams overnight.

Softball Conversion

Using baseball as a metaphor, this is the softer type of conversion process. Tell clients up front that conversion may take up to six months. Because the bird may have eaten that way all of its life, it will take time to change this behavior.

Softball conversion looks something like this:
1. Weigh the bird every morning for one week and record those weights.
2. Place half pellets and half seed in the regular food bowl.
If there is a special food bowl or area in which the owner usually gives treats, place only pellets there. Or, place only pellets in a higher food bowl in the cage, because birds will usually feed from the highest bowl in the cage first.
3. Depending on the feeding ritual the owner has with the bird, some other tricks can come in handy. If the client and bird have a meal together, the owner can place some pellets on its plate and simulate (if not actually doing so) eating the pellets. The parrot that is used to eating with the owner will be much more likely to want some of that new special stuff its owner is eating.
4. A bird that was normal on examination should not lose more than 10 percent of its body weight in any 24-hour period with this method. If this is occurring, clients might need to back off the pellets just for a few days and start over again after the bird has gained the weight back on seed.
5. By watching the scale and making a gradual reduction in seeds, clients can easily have the bird converted in two to three weeks.

Hardball Conversion

This method is indeed harder and should be reserved for those stubborn clients and patients who refuse to convert to pellets. This is often used as a life-saving technique for obese birds.

1. Weigh the bird every morning for one week to establish normals.
2. Place only pellets in the food bowls, along with fresh water, of course.
3. Weigh the bird eight hours later. If 10 percent weight loss has occurred, the client must feed the bird some of the old food. This is where scales really are important. Many owners will come home to see lots of pellets crumbled in the bottom of the cage and wonder whether the bird really ate any or if they just played with them, crunched them up and dropped them on the cage floor. The scales will tell the story.
4. Communicate with the owners during this whole period. Voicemail and e-mail make it possible to communicate frequently. However, it will only be effective if your client has a scale and can give you hard data instead of feelings about how the bird is eating.
5. Most birds will convert with this process in five to seven days. I have a 59-year-old Amazon that my wife converted in this manner in 12 days; the previous owner told me that for 15 years this bird would not eat pellets.
Some owners are hesitant to feed pellets, stating pellets are too expensive. I share with them some of the hospitalization/medical bills that some of these seed-only eaters have had once they crash. That makes an impression. I also share with them the tiny amount of a nutritious diet that is necessary to feed their bird. I use my birds for an example: My umbrella cockatoo Stevie eats about 15 pellets a day. There is much less mess and the waste is negligible.-S.V.