Feeding Your Bird is Important. Pet Birds Need a Balanced Diet Just Like Humans.

Feeding your bird is important. Pet birds need a balanced diet just like humans. There is a large variety of freshly packed seeds available to feed your bird.

As well as normal seed, your bird needs specialised seed or pellets. These seeds or pellets are similar to the food that they would get in their natural environment. There is a large variety available in all pet stores, just wander around the pet bird supplies and read the packaging, then decide which is best for your breed of bird. If you choose a high quality seed, this will help considerable to reduce wastage. Seed is only a part of a bird's diet, so for a bird to have a balanced diet, it must be given a vitamin and mineral supplement for the essential dietary ingredients it would find if it was living in the wild. Once or twice a week, you may feed your bird either fresh fruit or vegetables as an additional food source.

Charlie our Quaker Parrot loves his fruit and vegetables. He also likes pasta. You will soon be aware of what your pet bird likes to eat and which food is his favourite. They are just like little kids, they will spit our what they don't want. That is why we put a birdbib on while Charlie is on our shoulders and having a nibble, as he is very messy and it doesn't worry him where he spits his unwanted food.

Whilst we like to give Charlie a wide variety of foods, I have read that feeding your bird the wrong food can be highly dangerous and even fatal. You must not let your bird eat any of them. They are, avocado, chocolate, apple seeds including cherries, peaches, apricots and pears contain trace amounts of cyanide within their seeds. The fruit of the apple and pear is fine but the seeds are poisonous and there may be pesticides present on the fruit's skin so it is important to wash all food, onions, mushrooms, tomato leaves including the green coloured part, stems and vines and the same for potatoes, salt, caffeine including soda, coffee, and tea, dried beans are all not to be fed to your pet bird, cooked beans are considered ok as long as they are thoroughly cooked. Boiled eggs and the shell are a good source of nutrition as well.