Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!cs.utexas.edu!uunet!intercon!ooblick
From: ooblick@intercon.com (Mikki Barry)
Newsgroups: rec.birds
Subject: Re: INDOOR: Cockatoo Diet
Message-ID: <1990Apr10.004418.8686@intercon.com>
Date: 10 Apr 90 00:44:18 GMT
References: <35800@cci632.UUCP> <1990Apr9.170834.5948@dinorah.wustl.edu>
Organization: InterCon Systems Corporation, Sterling, VA
Lines: 48

More diet stuff.  Oh Nooooo :-)

Yes, birds DO get heart/artery problems due to high cholesterol.  My vet
recently saw a 7 year old amazon who died of hardening of the arteries.
The bird should have lived at least 50 more years.  It was diet related.
The owner let the bird eat off her plate and she usually ate stuff like
sour creme, toast and butter, meat and potatoes, etc. etc.  Top it off
with a seed mix that was mostly sunflower (53% fat) and voila!

Here are some tips for changing over cockatoos to a *good* [tm] diet:

1)  do NOT try to starve them into trying something new.  They very well
may call your bluff, resulting in a dead bird.  Cockatoos and greys are
notorious for this!

2)  Fruits and veggies are best accepted first thing in the morning.  Try
giving the bird nothing but a bowl of fruits and veggies in the AM, and a few
hours later, change it for his regular stuff.

3)  Giving the bird a handful of seed sprinkled on top of pellets in the
afternoon will get the bird used to the fact that pellets are food.  You can
gradually try decreasing seed and increasing pellets until he eats them.  Even
after conversion to pellets, the bird will become bored if that is all you give
him.  A couple of peanuts of sunflowers every day won't hurt him.

4)  There are new fruit/veggie delivery systems :-) available from showbird.
The device consists of a skewer on which you stick an apple, orange, etc,
and a cover for the pointy end of the skewer.  The bird thinks its a toy and
gradually starts chewing/picking at it.  Sneaky way to get them some good
stuff.

5)  If you HAVE TO feed seed, try to make sure it's fresh.  If it won't
sprout, there ain't enough nutrients in it to keep a cockatoo going.

6)  Don't forget nekton-s in the water, vionate sprinkled on the food, and
maybe even some petamine thrown in for good measure.

Chances are your bird will live much longer if you give him a good variety
of vitamins and minerals, while cutting down on the fats.  Cockatoos in the
wild eat LOTS of different things.  Not just seeds.  Experiment.  I have one
that loves spaghetti, another that will die for ice cream (he only gets a 
little, very infrequently.  You've never seen anything like a cockatoo that
runs across the room and buries his beak in your Ben & Jerry's :-)).  They
all love grapes and apples.  One hates oranges so much that he buries his head
in his water dish whenever he tastes them.  All birds are different.  You
have to keep trying until you hit upon something good they want.

Mikki Barry