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From: andrewt@cs.su.oz (Andrew Taylor)
Newsgroups: rec.birds
Subject: bird digestion
Message-ID: <1711@cluster.cs.su.oz.au>
Date: 26 Dec 90 08:01:50 GMT
References: <2707@oucsace.cs.OHIOU.EDU> <3175@legs.UUCP> <27766494.2CA@intercon.com>
Sender: news@cluster.cs.su.oz.au
Reply-To: andrewt@cluster.cs.su.oz (Andrew Taylor)
Organization: Basser Dept of Computer Science, University of Sydney, Australia
Lines: 13

In article <27766494.2CA@intercon.com> ooblick@intercon.com (Mikki Barry)
writes:
> ... keeping food away from a bird for three days is really stupid.
> A bird's metabolism is so much faster than a humans, that it would
> be like keeping food away from a human for a week.

Size not faster metabolism is the important difference. Small birds
may have problems with just 1-2 days without food. Many larger birds can
fast for longer. For example mallards can fast up to 3 weeks. Champions
are male Emperor penguins which fast for 3-4 months.  Of course, penguins are
not typical cage birds.

Andrew