Are Pellets or Seeds Better for Parrots?
by Heike Ewing Ott
The experts tell us that pellets provide a more nutritious diet for parrots than seeds do. Why then do so many people still feed their birds a seed diet? Here are some facts about pellets and seeds to help you decide which is a better diet for your own bird.
I was told that I should feed my bird seeds, not pellets. They say that if birds were meant to eat pellets, pellets would grow wild just like the seed.
1) If the only healthy diet for a pet is what it eats in the wild, then we should be feeding our dogs and cats whole small animals, too. After all, “pelleted” dog and cat diets aren’t found in the wild, either.
2) Parrots don’t eat much seed in the wild, in fact, and certainly not the types of seeds one finds in commercial parrot mix. They eat a wide variety of foods that you can’t hope to duplicate unless you start importing them from South America. Parrots in the wild eat plants, tubers, fruits, grains, nuts, flowers, seed, insects, and sometimes carrion.
3) Seed diets are deficient in vitamins, minerals, and amino acids. In the wild parrots can compensate for deficiencies by eating other things. In captivity, they are dependent on what you give them, and if that’s mostly seed they have no way to make up for what the seeds lack. In particular, an all-seed diet lacks calcium, which is very important to parrots for maintaining their delicate bones. Seeds also are lacking in complete proteins, which birds need in order to replace and grow feathers, which are something like 98% protein.
4) The premise that “birds eat seed” comes from watching small seed-eating softbills. We don’t have any parrots native to the U.S. (although the QP’s seem to be working on it <G>), so we don’t have first-hand observations about what they eat. (And many of these seed-eaters also eat insects for protein. Remember “the early bird gets the worm?”) You can’t determine what parrots should eat by watching starlings and sparrows!
5) A healthy diet for an olympic athlete would be a good healthy diet for you also – right? The comparison is valid. Wild Quakers (and other parrots) fly miles daily in search of food and need a high-energy diet. Our “perch potatoes” will tend to be overweight and have associated health problems if fed the same type of high-fat diet that they eat in the wild. This is especially true of Quakers, who are prone to obesity and Fatty Liver Disease in captivity. Research has determined that a parrot’s diet should be about 12 – 15% fat. Most seed mixes are much higher in fat than that, and it gets worse by the time they have picked out and eaten their high-fat favorites, the sunflower and safflower seeds.
6) Based on my personal observations as a vet tech, the reading and research I have done, and my personal experience as a breeder, I will say that parrots on pellets and a varied diet of vegetables, fruits, grains, and table food live longer, are healthier, have better color and feather condition, and are more active and playful.
7) Parrots have taste buds and in some ways are like small children – they will eat the most of what they like the best, which isn’t going to be what’s good for them. Although a high-quality, supplemented seed mix -may- actually be a fairly well-balanced diet if eaten in its entirety, it won’t be after your little darling has finished picking out the parts it likes the best and dumping the rest on the floor.
In conclusion:
Your parrot’s diet should consist of a pellet BASE ( 60 – 70% pellets), vegetables, grains, legumes, fruits, other table foods (20 – 30%), and some seed. The greater the variety of foods you offer your parrot, the more likely it is that it will be able to meet its nutritional needs.
—–More About Seeds and Seed-bearing Treats—–
Seeds are a natural, high-energy food that are good nutrition as a -limited- part of a balanced diet (I sound like a cereal commercial!). Seeds are not inherently bad, they are just incomplete, and some are high in fat. When used in combination with other things that make up for what they lack – sort of like putting red beans and rice together to get a complete protein – they can be a useful addition to the parrot’s diet.
The “small” seeds, such as millet and canary grass seed, are high in carbohydrates, relatively low in fat, and a good energy source. I think you’ll find that most of the seed content in Nutriberries and Avicakes is this type of seed rather than the high-fat sunflower and safflower seeds. The treats then have pellets and other things such as grains and dried fruits added and are coated with a sticky coating, sort of like honey, that dries hard and holds the treat together and contains nutrient additives. Because of the nature of the coating, the parrot almost has to ingest it while eating the treat, which is not true of the methods used to add supplements to loose seed mixes.
Because of the coating and the way the parts of the treat are “glued” together to make it difficult for the parrot to eat only the parts it likes, these treats do overcome some of the problems associated with loose seed mixes. While I personally wouldn’t feed them as a main diet, they probably come far closer to being a complete diet than a conventional seed mix.
The problem that arises with seed is when people try to feed a seed mix all by itself, as the whole or great majority of the diet. It’s not so bad for the small birds like canaries and budgies, whose seed mix consists mostly of the “good” seed like millet, but “parrot mix” is usually mostly sunflower and safflower seed, which are calcium deficient and very high in fat.
So, don’t be afraid to feed your Quaker (or other parrot) treats that contain seed as long as it is otherwise on a good, balanced, low-fat diet that provides the nutrients the seeds are lacking, such as vitamin C, calcium, and complete proteins.
Recently, I’ve heard that a high pellet diet can damage the parrots kidneys because of the high protein.
That is true for certain species or mutations within specific species of birds. (Kidney failure due to pellets.) Blue pacific parrotlets for instance should NOT be given any type of pellet. In fact you must also watch everthing that you feed them: Anything with vitamins may be dangerous to a parrotlet.
Most likely this is because these birds are the smallest parrot, and there has not been any studies done on the proper amount of vitamins & minerals for a healthy parrotlet’s diet.
Only after this specie/ breed {blue pacific parrotlet} has been studied, and a specific pellet are created for their dietary needs should such a bird ever be given pellets.
To be on the safe side: I personally will Not allow any of my parrotlet(s) to have access to pellets. Currently I only have a single parrotlet, but in the future I plan on adding at least 3 more to my house.
My blue pacific parrotlet eats a varied diet of fresh food along with millet spray as her seed treat.
My quaker is fed: Pellets, Nuts ‘N’ Nuggets (An all pellet “berry” simular to a seed Nutriberry.) as well as fresh food. Nutriberries are given as a treat, along with Avi-cakes.
Loose seed is never given to my quaker parrot. Nor ANY of my birds. It’s pointless, and ineffective. Avi-Cakes, and Nuttriberries provide a challenge to eat. Millet is the best type of seed to feed as it isn’t as high in fat as sunflower, and safflower. Therfor millet sprays are given, but never loose seed.
My cockatiels are fed the same diet as my quaker: Pellets. Although I rarely add any seed-based food to their diet. (The hen was a major seed-junkie as a baby.)
El Paso Nutriberries are the favorite of all my pet birds. The other flavors of Nutriberries just don’t seem to get eaten as fully, and I hate to waste the “berries” because they are so expensive.
I have a Jenday Conure. My vet said I need to add pellets to her diet. I am trying every which way possible, and can’t get her interested. I even eat the pellets since whenever I introduce ANY new food to her, this peeks her interest. She always eats what I eat. But not on this topic of pellets. She looks at me and body-language tells me I’m on my OWN on this one. Not even eating pellets with her is getting her interested. I try grinding them up into all her favorite foods, and she just walks away. She gives me this look like I’ve totally destroyed her favorite food of veggies and fruits or apple sauce etc…
Does anyone have this problem, and if there was any solution, I would LOVE to hear. I am ALL EARS on this situation.
She, I thought, eats a balanced diet. I thought she was getting all of her nutrients. Fruits, veggies, protein (loves scrambled eggs). However her feathers are telling us a different story regarding getting all her nutrition, and that is why the vet said I need to add pellets to her diet. I did not know this prior, so now, after five years of fresh food, adding pellets is TOUGH. She is a five year old Jenday Conure.
can you give me something on what to feed are bird i didn,t get a book i want to know what treats in are house and what suff you can,t have in the house i hear pufem is not goood for them just help me please and thanks from the bottlem of my heart
Rita-Sounds like you got a stubborn conure! I have a budgie, a foundling that I rescued from work that was laying in the grass. She was underweight when I found her, but started to gain weight soon. I bought a mix called Nutraphase Gold for parakeets. I took her to an Avian vet who suggested I eventually convert her to pellets. I’ve slowly been mixing her parakeet seed mix with the pellets. She seems to eat a few of them, but I’ve not forced her yet by just putting all pellets in her dish. They suggest putting 2 dishes in the cage, one with seed mix and the other pellets. Leave the seeds in for only 20 minutes, once in the morning, and once in the evening, and eventually omitting the evening seed dish.If the bird still refuses to eat the pellets,
the suggest ‘hiding’ some of amount of seed at the bottom of the dish of pellets. My vet’s office even offers a ‘bird diet boot camp’. Check out: http://avianexoticanimalhospital.com/documents/DandNbirds.pdf
good luck!
I wanted to make a comment about native parrots to the United States. Actually there were two species of parrots that were indigenous to the U.S. – the Carolina parakeet which became extinct in 1918, and the thick-billed parrot which has not been seen in the wild in Arizona since the 1930s, although it is undergoing a reintroduction effort there.
When I put out a bird feeder this week for the first time ever, the first birds to appear were 3 parrots! The feed was Wagner’s song bird mix. They kept coming back 1 – 3 times a day. I found out they are “Black Headed/Hooded Parakeets/Conures, or, Nanday Conures (all different names for the same colored bird, same size.) I live in Sarasota, FL. They have not been back for a few days, and the feeder is now being mobbed by a dozen or more mourning doves, although a couple of blue jays get through, as well as red-winged blackbirds, and a pair of what I think are fish crows.
I have 2 questions: 1. what is the best thing I can put out to keep the parrots coming back – should I buy pellets – whatever I put out is going to get wet; 2. any clues as to how to discourage the pigeons, er, mourning doves?
Thanks!
I own Illiger macaws and yes i agree that a varied diet is the way to go. I also incorporate Pine nuts, palm nuts, melon/squash seeds, coconut, and Jacaranda flower buds to their diets. They like safflower/ sunflower seeds but i will only offer 50% with pellets. other foods I’ve tried with success were magnolia seeds,all fruit some pitted,on rare occasions, insects such as mealworms. They have no fear of the squirmy things as they’re in their claws and also search for the heads first to kill them i imagine. Yeah it might be gross and its not done by hardly anyone but it is a protein source they apparently need.My point is if you just look at their wild counterparts diets and what we feed them and its as if you’d be feeding your child ice cream everyday for dinner.
Recently my budgie started getting diarrhea, and his beak became overgrown. I’ve been feeding him (and his cagemate, another budgie) a seed-only diet for several years, under the impression this was the most natural and balanced diet any bird should eat… Been supplementing with fresh bits of celery, broccoli etc several times a week, and trying to find something that will fix him up ( and that he’ll actually choose to eat). Now I feel I should be introducing a pellet mix. Any suggestions as to which brands to try or avoid?
Thanks.
Rita, your bird will eat pellet when it gets hungry enough. If you treat the pellet as the main source of the diet, the bird will begin eating it long before he will go hungry. When I first introduced pellet to my maroon bellied conure 10 years ago, he refused to eat for about 2 days, then began eating it. 10 years later, it consists of about 70 percent of his diet. (he is actually munching on it right now behind me, as we speak).
Rita..about your bird not liking pellets…Choo Choo DESPISES them. I had a cockatiel for 17 years and he (Bozo) ate only the small seed and the occasional sunflower seed in the mix. I offered other things too…like whole wheat bread, apples, spinach, etc and that was that. I’m going to try to offer my Choo Choo them from time to time..even if she just nibbles at them, I’ll be grateful for that. You’re not alone with that problem!
Forcing a bird to eat a diet which consists mostly of pellets is like forcing a child to eat frozen hamburgers every day along with a few token veggies. Your bird is telling you something when he refuses to eat them. You should not give them the same things in the same amount every day, especially not the added vitamins and minerals (all synthetic!) in pellets. Such a diet is monotonous, horrible, and in the long run, unhealthy. Your bird may look good for a few years because suddenly he is getting extra vitamins and minerals which he may have lacked, but wait for kidney and liver damage to show up, which it does later on, in many cases. I work with rescues and pluckers, and have yet to see a bird on mostly pellets which compares to one on mostly fresh, healthwise. Practically all the pluckers who come in are on pellets (and have other health problems too) and when we introduce them to a mostly fresh diet, they really flourish! Many people who push pellets are actually the ones who sell them – please think for yourselves, think of how a parrot eats in the wild, think of how you are supposed to feed your own bodies and act accordingly. Never let yourselves be convinced that pellets are better because they are not.
http://www.africangreys.com/articles/nutrition/pellets.htm
https://companionparrotonline.com/Techniques.html
I promote natural health and recently got a Sun Conure. I initially thought that I would choose a seed diet, then I read that all the vets say to put the bird on a pellet diet. I checked the bags and the first ingredient is CORN. Then wheat. Then soy. These are all the ingredients that the USA has a surplus of. These are the same GMO ingredients that cause allergies in humans, and corn, wheat and soy are at the top of the list of allergenic foods. Monsanto makes sure that insecticides are bred into these plants. Pellets are nothing more than cereal which is junk food injected with vitamins to cover up the deficiency. Pellets are like the cereal our kids eat for breakfast that are fortified because it is nothing more than grain dust. Even if you buy organic pellets, you are making your bird eat a GRAIN diet and the last time I checked, my Conure wasn’t hanging out in the wheat, corn, or soy fields. There is a surplus of crops and the US is doing a great job of convincing all of us that we should be eating it and feeding it to our animals. We are diseased because of eating this junk, so our birds will follow. And the doctors keep on making money.
I have to say, after having birds for 20+ years, I cannot disagree with a pellet based diet enough. When they first came on the market, I was skeptical, but on my vet’s advice, I fed this recommended pellet based diet, only to have my beloved female cockatiel come down with visceral gout and pass away. My male cockatiel who had a slew of genetic health problems (including pancreatic insufficiency) but who flat out REFUSED pellets, managed to outlive her by 7+ years. I used drive an hour a month to pick up Harrison’s and followed my vet’s advice to a T. Originally, if anyone remembers, many of the pellet companies tried to discourage pet owners from offering too much variety for fear the animals might prefer other items and you HAD TO MAKE THEM EAT PELLETS!!!
Now, I feed a more varied diet, but when I moved a few years ago, there was a period of time I was busy and fed a pellet based diet again due to time, it was only for a window of months while we moved, my beloved 16 yr old pacific parrotlet passed away sooner than expected, I blame the pellets. He was my best friend, I was heartbroken. I don’t think it would have hurt him if he had a good diet his whole life, but for many years while he was young, I followed the pellet advice from a vet. Jerk. I think the stress of the move, the previous damage done to his body and pellets again just pushed him over. I’ve stopped using more than one vet because their advice directly contradicted obvious evidence in favor of profit. Complete disregard for the animal’s well being.
Doing research, I find that many health problems in pet birds, ESPECIALLY SMALL BIRDS, who might normally eat more seed in the wild, can be traced back to pellets, but unfortunately most of the info out there is provided and paid for by the pet food manufacturers that make money off these products. Vets also frequently get a kick-back recommending products.
Actually the whole argument with dogs and cats diets is moot too. There is a movement in dog and cat care to feed raw or homemade diets. Pet food in general was created by big business so they would have a use and could make a profit off the leftovers of the human food industry. Would YOU eat processed food as a base for your diet every day of YOUR life? Does that make any sense? Look at the ingredient list of most pellets you’ll find a base of wheat, corn or soy with vitamins and various other ingredients that may or may not even keep in that form, added.
Most of the time if you corner a vet they will admit that manufactured diets is NOT the best diet for an animal, but rather the argument is that most people are too ignorant to provide a varied enough diet for their animal-cats need taurine from organ meat, not just meat, birds need a variety, etc. So ready made diets ensure “stupid” people’s pets will have proper nutrition. They don’t readily admit that pet nutrition isn’t taught in veterinary colleges and when it is, it’s done by pet food companies that are out to make a profit.
Sorry, but my pets are my family members and I wouldn’t feed kids ready made, processed food every day, I wouldn’t eat it, so why would I feed my birds that? I felt the need to say something because I’m sure there are people out there like myself, who really love their birds, would make the effort to provide them with the best and be absolutely heartbroken if they found themselves contributing to their bird’s demise by doing what they believe is right. If I had known then what I know now, I would never have tried to make my birds eat pellets, any more than for an occasional treat.
– I don’t sell pellets; I don’t recommend any particular pellets and I’ve been a consumer advocate, investigating misleading advertising since the 1970’s. I am also a certified avian expert & specialist in the field of psittacine behavior and nutrition.
– Quite a few misconceptions remain from the earliest days of pellet formulas, especially with cockatiels and other small birds. Happily, those days and those imperfections are long gone. Pellets are not meant to be a staid diet. Other, fresh foods are absolutely necessary; however, many owners give up, insisting that their bird won’t eat fresh foods. What we need is more owner creativity and persistence. It took me a solid year of offering carrots every way you can imagine before a rescued Severe macaw tried them, but she did.
— There are FAR more dangers and rampant dishonesty in advertising when it comes to seeds! The ’supplemented’ seed blends saying all the right things to make you buy them (including the cheap prices compared to pellets) – are more lies than truth. Psittacines do not swallow the seed shells/pods. This is where the ’supplement’ or vitamins are sprayed on.
— The truth of the matter is that there is NO ‘truth in advertising’ when it comes to any pets. There are ZERO quality control regulations like there are for human foods. The pellet makers are in constant science backed studies for the good of the bird because they want to be USED by the researchers & scientists studying various birds worldwide. Pellets are (speaking to the brands I use) ALL NATURAL. Remember, your ALL NATURAL breakfast cereal doesn’t look like the wheat or the oats in the fields – they are ‘processed’. That word doesn’t mean ‘bad’. And yes, humans CAN eat bird pellets without any ill health effects; but, that does not hold true for seeds.
— Birds do NOT eat predominantly seeds in the wild and those that do eat a lot of seeds when free-feeding are burning off the high fat content by foraging nearly nonstop during daylight.
When birds are in our care, they cannot burn the calories like they need to. Nearly ALL birds on a predominantly seed diet will suffer from hepatic lipidosis; internal and external tumors (lipomas); and a multitude of other health complications that rarely, if ever, occur in their wild counterparts. AND rarely occur in a pellet eater that also gets regular fresh foods (the good kinds).
— Finally, a bird nearly never dies ‘all of a sudden’. They are expert at masking illness, disease, symptoms. Necropsies (birdy ‘autopsies’) will almost always find that the cause of death is something that was going on for quite a while.
– Please make your choices for your companions based on real education, not free internet sites, forums and old wives tales, or just plain out of date facts. The earliest days of pellets and the handful of complications they created in cockatiels -ended up exploited by the seed pushers for their own greed. It’s time to be smarter than that.
I got started with parrots in 1971 when I returned from the Army. My first parrot was a male cockatiel who lived to be 27 on a seed and vegetable/fruit diet with a supplement of peanut butter with powdered vitamins and bee pollen added. Additionally they would get meal worms, when I could get quality ones. They also had a calcium supplement of bird grit and crushed egg shells (from boiled eggs). My second bird was his mate who lived to be 23. They raised more young than I can remember, all on the same diet.
I had the following additional birds breeding and producing healthy babies: Lovebirds: Peach Faced and Fischers.
Parakeets: Budgies, Indian & African Ringnecks, Red Rumps and Bourkes.
Conures: Peach fronted, Blue Crowned & Nanday.
Timneh African Greys and Senegals.
Blue Headed Pionus.
Amazons: Blue Fronted, Orange Winged and a Mexican Yellow Headed (f), Panama (m) pair.
Macaw: Yellow Collared.
The vegetables & fruits I would feed included: carrots, cooked yams, fresh corn on the cob, spinach and bean sprouts, grapes, apples, figs, guava and banana. Also walnuts, acorns and Brazil nuts (to the larger birds).
The best way I got the birds to vary their diet was to get them eating peanut butter, then smear some on what I wanted them to eat.