Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!ames!apple!chuq
From: chuq@Apple.COM (Chuq Von Rospach)
Newsgroups: rec.birds
Subject: Re: Cockatoo feeding problems
Message-ID: <33394@apple.Apple.COM>
Date: 23 Jul 89 02:51:41 GMT
References: <6518@cloud9.Stratus.COM> <1300@intercon.UUCP>
Organization: Life is just a Fantasy novel played for keeps
Lines: 55

>By the way sunflower seeds are 54.5% fat in content.  Now I don't know about
>you but if you sat around all day in front of your computer eating a substancial
>amount of food that contained 54.5% fat, you would get plump and probably
>be in risk of having heart disease...

Actually, there are a number of people I know who do eat that kind of diet.
Ever look at the nutritional breakdown of a Winchell's donut, a big Mac and
a couple of slices of Pizza? 

>Just something to think about.  When
>you DON'T HAVE TO feed sunflower seeds, why feed them?  The bird can get
>everything they need from other foods.

There are multiple things that a bird gets from food. One major aspect of
the food is, of course, the nutrients -- the vitamins, fats, proteins etc.
Dietary 101 stuff.

The other very important thing is calories. Unlike many programmers,
birds (especially cockatoos) don't always get as many calories as they
should -- keeping a bird up to weight is as important as keeping the
bird full of nutrients, because an underweight bird is a sick bird (or
a dead bird). I could feed my cockatoo a no-sunflower seed mix and make
all my no-sunflower friends really happy -- and end up with a bird
that's seriously underweight in just a few days, because my bird won't
eat safflower. A healthy food is only good if the bird eats it. I do
what I can to make sure Morgan gets as varied a diet as I can (and,
frankly, she only touches her seed dish a couple of days a week, since
she's usually stuffed full of other things, like bananas, walnuts, spaghetti,
beef shanks, chicken legs (cooked. We don't want salmonella!), pork
chop bones, a good curry and corn on the cob (her favorite these days
-- like any three year old, anything that makes a mess is a *lot* more
fun) so I don't consider it a big deal. But if it was safflower and she
was hungry, she'd stay hungry. That doesn't seem like a decent
trade-off to me. If *all* Morgan ate was sunflower I'd be worried, but
since I have to convince her to eat her bird food (as opposed to people
food, which is her preference) I don't mind.

I'd much rather have bird eating 'unhealthy' seeds (although I am not
convinced from the evidence, as I've said) than not eating at all.
The optimal diet, actually, is eating what we eat -- within reason, table
scraps are a great diet for a bird, if you're eating healthy. Avoid fatty
foods, especially deep-fried foods and sugared stuff and you'll be okay.
Have some leftover veggies or macaroni and cheese? Give it to your bird --
but watch out. If they take a liking to it, you may never dine at leisure
again. Morgan is known to wallow in ice cream bowls these days. I don't
encourage it, but she doesn't listen. So she gets her own spoon of ice
cream, just to keep her quiet (small amounts -- enough to keep her occupied.
There's something about a bird clenching a spoon and sucking every little
bit of ice cream off of it that is *so* cute...)


Chuq Von Rospach      =|=     Editor,OtherRealms     =|=     Member SFWA/ASFA
         chuq@apple.com   =|=  CI$: 73317,635  =|=  AppleLink: CHUQ
      [This is myself speaking. No company can control my thoughts.]