Baby Blue Quakers being weaned on the BBFE Complete Protein Sprouting Blend. Photo courtesy of Barbi’s Birdhouse.
When wanting to keep our parrots healthy so many people focus on avoiding the pathogens. However, we live on a planet that’s full of them: aspergillosis, candida, bacteria, viral infections and the like. Aspergillosis and candida are ubiquitous … meaning they are everywhere. Aspergillosis is most commonly found in garden soil and compost.
Aspergillosis–Everywhere
When I wrote my three part series on aspergillosis last Fall in my monthly column, The Holistic Parrot, in Parrots magazine, I discovered that aspergillosis is one of the most infectious pathogens on the planet for both people and birds.
A wide majority of people focus on trying to prevent their bird from ever being exposed to aspergillosis or other microbes. Unless you have your parrot living inside a glass bubble or other futuristic-like clean room, avoiding exposure to pathogens, including aspergillosis is impossible.
Essential for good Health
The most important thing you can do to keep your birds healthy is to keep their immune system strong. Now when I mention supporting the immune system most people immediately talk about using medicinal herbs. What I’m suggesting is much simpler and can have a greater impact. I want to take you back to the basics, the basics of balanced, wholesome life changing nutrition. By focusing on improving the foods you feed your birds you’ll get a more desirable long term benefit. You’ll see that feeding the type of foods I suggest will give your birds the results you desire: improved health and a happy disposition.
The easiest way to strengthen your bird’s immune system is to ensure they are properly nourished. But nearly all the foods commonly discussed on-line as ‘proper nutrition’ for birds actually fall short of this goal. According to the research paper, “Estimated Nutrient content of Diets Commonly Fed to Pet Birds”, published in the March 30, 2002 issue of The Veterinary Record, the foods commonly fed to pet parrots are lacking in even the basic nutrients required for basic body maintenance and survival.
The bottom line is that if a parrot’s immune system has been supported by superior avian nutrition the individual can easily resist a wide variety of pathogens. In my personalized consultations I use foods as medicine to reverse many disease conditions.
Providing Superior Avian Nutrition
What do I consider foods that provide superior avian nutrition? First we begin with a properly formulated and properly grown sprouting blend. The sprouting blends I use and recommend are certified organic, have been formulated to provide complete protein and have a compatible germination and growth rate so they can be grown for 2 to 3 days to reach optimum nutrition. I suggest that these sprouting blends make up 50 to 80% of a parrot’s diet. The rest of the foods fed can include organic fresh fruit and raw or steamed vegetables, species appropriate nuts. I stopped feeding pellets in 2013. In place of pellets you can cook the BBFE sprouting blend as a Mash, this recipe is on this website.
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Schedule your Personalized Consultation for Healing Aspergillosis with Leslie
In order to heal aspergillosis you must be willing to teach your bird to eat foods that are health promoting from the plan I put together for their bird’s unique physiology and situation. This means eliminating all the health destroying foods from their bird’s feeding plan and replacing them with foods that can and will build the bird’s immune system more powerfully than any combination of immune supporting herbs. I’ve learned that it takes a special type of person who is willing to work on improving their bird’s diet. Are you this type of person?
My complete three part series on aspergillosis appeared in the November #166, December #167, 2011 and the January #168, 2012 issues of Parrots magazine.
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