Back To Basics - Avian Care

You just welcomed a bird buddy to your family. In this exciting time, many owners need guidance to sort facts from fiction for avian care.

Do birds need physical exams? How often?

We recommend examining birds at least once a year. This visit may include a physical exam, a discussion about husbandry (nutrition, enclosure and environmental enrichment), and specific recommendations for your bird. Unfortunately, birds are considered a “high stress” species, so although we do our best to do fear-free handling, we always tell owners that if a bird is showing signs of stress, sometimes this means that a diagnostic may need to be performed at a later time or that we need to try medications to reduce stress for visits.

It is common that a bird may be a little sleepy or tired for a few hours after a visit, but please let your vet know of any concerns. Practicing a mock exam with positive reinforcement as part of home training your bird is a great way to help in advance to make the visit as enjoyable as possible! Here are some awesome links about training birds at home:

• There is a great website run by Barbara Heidenreich, a wonderful parrot behaviorist, with information on training your bird. Her website is barbarasffat.com.
• Learn more about training your bird at lafeber.com/pet-birds/teaching-your-bird.

What is foraging and why is it important for birds?

Birds are natural foragers in their environment, so it can be a big transition to go from that to a cage setup. As much as we can, we still want to incorporate foraging into daily routines for birds, ensuring that the environment is safe for them. By providing all food directly in a cage for birds, we can predispose them to becoming overweight or frustrated, or we can promote destructive behaviors. Check out these resources on introducing foraging behavior:

• lafeber.com/pet-birds/bird-foraging-and-play
• com/avian/bird-foraging-and-enrichment

What should I feed my bird?

For nutrition, unfortunately we see “bird seed” so commonly available for purchase for birds, and avian nutrition has come a long way in evaluating the impacts of diet on the avian body. A heavy seed diet is too high in fat and does not have the proper number of vitamins and minerals your bird needs to form a healthy immune system. Additionally, this diet predisposes birds to issues such as heart disease, liver disease and hormone imbalances.

I recommend feeding a high-quality pelleted diet from Harrison's, Zupreem, Roudybush or Lafeber. Zupreem also has a great resource on its website on three tried and true methods for switching your bird to a healthy, balanced diet. It can take weeks to months to fully transition their diet, but it is worth it for the long-term health and longevity of your pet. Check it out at zupreem.com/avian-conversion.

Birds can have human food, but this should not be the majority of their diet. There are some toxic foods for birds; see the links below for more information.

• lafeber.com/pet-birds/foods-toxic-pet-birds
• com/toxic-foods-your-bird-should-never-eat
• lafeber.com/pet-birds/bird-food-guide

I recommend introducing one new human food at a time and monitoring your pet’s situation for any worsening soft stools. Additionally, too much fruit in the diet can lead to problems with soft stools due to the higher acidity and sugar content. Most of the diet should be pellet-based combined with some vegetables and occasional fruit and protein components.

What type of enclosure setup should I have for my bird?

This can really depend on what your home setup looks like and what is doable for your home. Some key points include:

• Avoiding sandpaper perches and ensuring you have perches of varying size. Lafeber’s basic information sheets provide specific recommendations for each individual species.
• For housing/bird cages, we recommend you do not keep the cage in direct sunlight or by a window as this is prone to changes in temperatures and intimidating from outside predators.
• Eliminating nonstick products containing (polytetrafluoroethylene) PTFE from the home is the only guaranteed way to prevent poisoning.
• Ensure that when using a cage, you have a larger home cage setup and a smaller, safe travel cage.
• A cage should have adequate space for water dishes, food dishes, perches, toys, etc.

What are signs of illness I may see in my bird at home?

Similar to other pets, we can see changes in appetite, energy level, drinking, breathing effort, weight, etc. I recommend all my bird owners practice weighing with their bird once a week so we can track weights over time as weight gain and loss can be an early sign of illness in birds. We recommend using a gram scale for weighing birds. Zero or tare the scale so that it reads zero grams prior to weighing your pet. If you are using a temporary lid on the container, ensure when you zero the scale that the lid is on the container prior to performing this step.

For more information about identifying signs of illness in birds, visit lafeber.com/vet/wp-content/uploads/signs_of_illness.pdf.

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