How to keep parrots? A few practical care tips to share

Parrots are pets that people relatively like to keep, because parrots look very beautiful and have high ornamental value. At the same time, parrots also have a special ability: they can imitate human speech. Taming a parrot to talk is a great pleasure for many parrot keepers, so parrots have become the choice of many people.

Some tips for keeping parrots  

Because a parrot's beak is hard, and its toes work with its sharp beak to climb flexibly, it often destroys the cage it is kept in. Therefore, to keep a parrot, the first thing is to prepare a sturdy, durable cage with enough space for the parrot. Also set up enough perches in the cage so the parrot can rest and climb at any time, and fine sand should be spread at the bottom of the cage for the parrot's sand bathing and feeding.  

For daily feeding, the parrot's feed can be a mix of foxtail millet, broomcorn millet, barnyard millet, perilla seeds, and other mixed feed. In addition, combine it with some mineral-rich feed such as cuttlebone and shells. If feeding a young parrot, at the beginning you can gently hold the parrot's head to steady it, then gently bring a spoon near the parrot's beak, and the parrot will actively beg for food. The keeper does not need to force-feed the parrot with big mouthfuls, to avoid food accidentally entering the parrot's windpipe. Of course, as the parrot grows up, the keeper can prepare a food bowl for the parrot, put food into the bowl at fixed times, and let the parrot eat on its own.  

When keeping parrots, we will find that parrots have a habit of licking objects with their tongues. Therefore, cages, perches, feeding utensils, drinking vessels, and so on cannot be treated with disinfectant. Keepers had best rinse them with hot water and then place them in sunlight to disinfect. Toys that parrots bite and play with can be disinfected by steaming or boiling. For some items that cannot withstand high temperatures, they can be rinsed in running clean water and then dried in a ventilated place outdoors, to ensure the hygiene of the parrot's living environment and the parrot's health.

Mistakes when feeding young birds

Overfeeding because of worrying that the young bird is hungry. In nature, the parent birds must take turns going out to find food to raise the chicks, so the chicks cannot be fed until the crop is fully swollen. Therefore, young birds should be fed with small amounts and frequent meals, and before feeding, you should first confirm that the previous feeding has been completely digested, to avoid old food remaining and fermenting and causing ingluvitis.

Feeding only sunflower seeds

Generally speaking, parrots all enjoy sunflower seeds, but most bird lovers use them as their only food, not realizing that this behavior reduces the parrot's pleasure and ability to eat a variety of foods, and feeding only sunflower seeds easily leads to nutritional imbalance. In addition, sunflower seeds are rich in lipids, which easily lead to obesity-related diseases.

The problem of feed storage

If feed is stored improperly, the food can spoil and even produce toxins. If bird lovers do not notice and continue feeding it, the beloved bird will of course have problems. Therefore, it is recommended to choose feed according to the number you keep. Large packages are of course cheaper, but the storage life of feed is not long, and considering only this point may lead to a small loss causing a big one. Besides storing feed in a dry, even refrigerated environment, inviting a few fellow hobbyists to share it together is a good method. Not only is the cost lower, the risk is also lower, and you can also try many kinds of products.

There are quite a lot of parrot products on the market, and readers can try many of them. If limited by budget, several bird lovers can join together to buy them, since after all, the food each bird likes is not necessarily the same.

Here we introduce only a few common and easily obtainable foods for readers' reference:

Fruits: such as apple (most birds like it), orange, guava, papaya, wax apple, and so on.

Vegetables: leafy vegetables can be tried, and carrot is also a good choice.

In addition, the editor also uses some processed foods, such as cooked rice, toast, bread, and so on. You can first give these easily obtainable foods as a test, and it is best to record the results of these tests.

Bird lovers often report that their beloved birds pick at food and scatter the feed all over the ground. This is not a problem of wasting feed and cleaning work, but rather a hope that the beloved bird will form good habits. The method the editor often uses is: give a fixed amount of food at a fixed time, with the food amount far less than before, so the beloved bird understands that this is all the food there is at this time. If it is scattered away, it has to wait for the next meal. Gradually it will cherish food more and change its behavior. This requires the family to cooperate together. If it is a very bad-tempered parrot, it is recommended not to reduce the amount too much all at once; proceeding gradually is better.