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Sky is not eating his cuttle bone. What does this mean? I thought parrots nibbled on it all the time. A couple of his tail feathers have broken off. Would that be because he's not cuttle bone? I put this cuttle bone in there about 4 days ago along with a mineral block. Neither have been touched. I offer him some grit with oyster shell in it, too. Not everyday, but a little bit here and there. How often should I offer grit anyways?

First off, your IRN's dont need shell grit at all.

Grit, in the purpose of birds, is for aiding the digestion of whole seeds (ie; a pigeon or dove that doesnt 'hull' the seed itself, it eats the thing husk and all, the grit aides in taking the harder outer off.... psittacine (parrots) do not need it as they take the outer off before ingesting)

Regarding calcium, there are actually three main things that take place in regards to calcium and diet...

1) calcium
2) phosphorus
3) vitamin D3

All are heavily interlinked.

Without going into a huge amount of detail (i will provide a link for a more indepth look at it) you can actually ditch the cuttlebone / mineral block all together.

My pet birds dont touch cuttlebone (just like im sure an extremely small percent of wild parrots actually do either)... and it might be worth noting, that a bird who really does like its cuttlebone and has it given in large amounts, can actually do quite alot of harm in the long run (too much calcium is actually very bad)...

Food will give your bird more than enough calcium, and at a proper ballance as well. Fullfilling many goals in one hit... (diet needs, food, treats)

You can (on a very basic diifficulty level, and with alot of joy for the bird) solve calcium, phosphorus, and d3 in these tiny steps...

1 cup of Broccoli or Spinach a week (calcium)
1/4 cup of peanuts a week (phosphorus)
1 boiled egg a fortnight as well as some proper daylight (not windowsil, its useless as it filters the UV rays to points of nothingness for the bird) or a proper Uv light on / near the bird cage. (vitamin d3)

Doing something like that will cover more than enough (supplemented by other fruits / veg throughout the week/fortnight) to give your IRN a healthy happy life.

helpful info:

http://www.birdsnways.com/wisdom/ww22eii.htm

The only time mine touch cuttle bone is to get to the clips they come on, they don't actually eat it and would prefer to play with the clips. I give mine calcium in their water.

Fah wrote:First off, your IRN's dont need shell grit at all.

Grit, in the purpose of birds, is for aiding the digestion of whole seeds (ie; a pigeon or dove that doesnt 'hull' the seed itself, it eats the thing husk and all, the grit aides in taking the harder outer off.... psittacine (parrots) do not need it as they take the outer off before ingesting)

Regarding calcium, there are actually three main things that take place in regards to calcium and diet...

1) calcium
2) phosphorus
3) vitamin D3

All are heavily interlinked.

Without going into a huge amount of detail (i will provide a link for a more indepth look at it) you can actually ditch the cuttlebone / mineral block all together.

My pet birds dont touch cuttlebone (just like im sure an extremely small percent of wild parrots actually do either)... and it might be worth noting, that a bird who really does like its cuttlebone and has it given in large amounts, can actually do quite alot of harm in the long run (too much calcium is actually very bad)...

Food will give your bird more than enough calcium, and at a proper ballance as well. Fullfilling many goals in one hit... (diet needs, food, treats)

You can (on a very basic diifficulty level, and with alot of joy for the bird) solve calcium, phosphorus, and d3 in these tiny steps...

1 cup of Broccoli or Spinach a week (calcium)
1/4 cup of peanuts a week (phosphorus)
1 boiled egg a fortnight as well as some proper daylight (not windowsil, its useless as it filters the UV rays to points of nothingness for the bird) or a proper Uv light on / near the bird cage. (vitamin d3)

Doing something like that will cover more than enough (supplemented by other fruits / veg throughout the week/fortnight) to give your IRN a healthy happy life.

helpful info:

http://www.birdsnways.com/wisdom/ww22eii.htm

thank you for all the advice! that actually answered a lot of my questions and did away with my concerns. How much sunlight should he get? Does sunlight mean putting the cage in direct outside sunlight or can i simply put his cage on a porch? my back porch gets lots of sunlight in the morning. How long should I leave the cage outside?

You dont need to worry a huge amount about strict times regarding sunlight.

(on a trivia kinda note, we humans actually only need 30min of sunlight a day to survive... appart from the phychological problems darkness can cause us... thats all we need )

Now.. back to IRN's lol

If your little one gets a few solid doses of pure light a week, ie; 20-30min a day of outside play im sure they will be fine. Key elements is Diet... you can be very very flexible so long as their diets are good.

A porch is fine, so long as there is nothing to 'filter' the sunlight especially in the morning, direct light should hardly heat the little one up much at all at that time of the day, and the benefit of being outdoors is HUGE on a psychological level I have found with my fids. My guy comes back into the house on a high after a nice break outdoors.

If you miss a day or two, its hardly a problem, its not going to detriment the bird at all... and in the real wintery months its just best to let the guy stay indoors, if winters are really long, could suggest you just buy a little light for that time of the year.

julie wrote:The only time mine touch cuttle bone is to get to the clips they come on, they don't actually eat it and would prefer to play with the clips. I give mine calcium in their water.

Yup, mine use those "calcium perches" as giant launching pads... the one I have in mine has been there for um... 9 months... only marks on it are the ones from the feet