We know birds need some protein. Feeding egg food is as old as the hills, and some of us give meat to our birds and others do not. Some report their birds actively hunt insects, while at least one person has said their bird fears insects. While searching our site I even found this extremely interesting bit from Recio:
The entire thread is here: http://www.indianringneck.com/forum/vie ... hilit=meatI have seen my IRN eating grasshoppers coming into his aviary and is known that they like chicken. I had a pair of budgerigar in the same aviary with my IRN. The hen was not in a great form and when I came back from my weekend travel, there was not any female budgerigar, just some yellow feathers: they had eaten the female.
I have found precious little on the internet about feeding meat to parrots. Mainly, what I find falls into a few general lines of thought: A little meat is good for them, all meat is bad for them, meat must be cooked for them, meat is OK but fat is bad, meat should be fed sparingly or not at all. I even found one instance of someone saying you can feed them meat but you must cut it very fine so they don't choke. I guess this person has never watched a parrot eat........
I read these things and then I have a look at my bird. He was fed only seeds, as far as I know, for the bulk of his ten years before he came to me, and certainly for the last eight years before he came to me. I make a hefty assumption that most foods I offer him are novel. He has varying degrees of interest in novel natural foods.
Some foods, like the red Bell pepper, he likes immediately. Grains are a big instant win. Others, like carrot, he must warm up to. Some, like leafy greens, he just needs someone else to show him they are food. He likes all nuts upon first sight except Hazel nuts, for some reason. And he has never met a meat he doesn't love right off the bat.
Why is that? I've given him egg, Chicken, Tilapia, and Pig. I make sure to give a small bit, and the leanest part possible, always cooked. Now, if parrots are meant to eat meat, I assume he would prefer uncooked meat, but I'm stopping short of that, as I do for my dogs. I'm just not comfortable with the amount of time it takes between the slaughter and the supermarket for our meats to be fed raw. It's very interesting to me that my bird, with his limited history, would have to be taught to eat what we know is a natural food for him, and yet would not hesitate to dive for what we generally accept would be an unnatural food (large animal) for him.
Of course many will have opinions, but I am not looking for the sort of answers I could get from WikiAnswers or Answer-dot-com. I'm really hoping for well-considered opinions influenced by credible sources. I would like to consult those sources myself. I'd like to hear from breeders who keep their birds naturally, in outdoor aviaries, not in artificially lit basements. I want to know how much meat the meat-feeders give, how often, what, and WHY. I want to know the experiences of those who have kept birds for fifty years as well as those who have just started but researched everything they could get their hands on.
If you know something about feeding meat to parrots, speak up. We have a great forum, attended by caring and knowledge-seeking individuals. Simply by being in this place we have evaded a great number of those who are, shall we say, "less concerned with critical thought, facts, and education". Let's have some quality discussion on this topic!
Thank you!
-MissK
well maybe as MissK puts it...my $1.50
I'll offer him a grass hopper next time I find one.
It is worth reading for anyone with a even passing interest in Falconry, Hawks, Chickens, Firearms, or Dinner. Those without any familiarity with the terms of falconry should review some basic jargon in advance in order to make the most of this article.
I think I'll stick with beans and egg as my protein source lol 
