Conure Diet: Taking Care of your Conure's Nutritional Needs

So, you've found yourself the brand new owner of a Green-cheeked Conure, a member of the Pyrrhura family of birds (Pyrrhura molinae). Now what do you do?

A cute little green cheek (just-weaned) was added to my flock back in 2002. Below is some information that a new owner might find helpful in providing a proper and enjoyable diet for a new green cheek or other small parrot.

Keep in mind that you need to make a concerted effort to make your conure's diet more well-rounded and healthier, so even the pelleted diets need to be supplemented with a variety of other healthy foods. I recommend keeping pellets in their cage at all times, to offer them seeds more as treats, but supplement their diet with fruits, vegetables and other healthy items from the list below.

Vegetables

Peas in the shell or thawed frozen peas, broccoli, corn (fresh or thawed frozen corn), green beans, cooked and cooled limas, yellow or green squash (baked), carrots (raw or cooked), red or green peppers, cucumbers, greens (such as chopped spinach or other greens), cooked pinto beans, cooked lentils, cooked white beans. Please note that is important to let cooked food cool thoroughly before offering them to your conure, otherwise they could burn their tongues and crops.

Fruit

Apples (mine's absolute favorite!), blueberries, cut-up oranges, tangerines, bananas, pears, grapes, peaches, melon (minus the rind), strawberries, mangos, papaya, plums, cherries, etc. Always remove seeds/pits from fruit before serving.

Starches

Cooked brown rice, cooked pasta, baked or boiled shredded potatoes or yams (note that corn/peas are also starches).

Other

Pellets (Roudybush, Forti, Zupreem and others), a good seed blend such as Kaytee's Conure/Lovebird Forti-diet (if the Kaytee conure blend is not available in your area you could substitute a cockatiel blend), spray millet, sprouted seed, Lafeber's Avi-cakes, a mineral block or cuttlebone, multi-grain cereals that are low in sodium, sugar, and fat.

My green cheek is partial to the Forti seed diet and the Zupreem Fruit Blend for cockatiels. Neither my conure nor my tiels will eat the yellow banana-shaped Zupreem fruit pellets. He seems to like the orange and red ones the best. For some reason he puts the green ones in his water tube. He likes avi-cakes and will occasionally eat the mini Roudybush pellets that the cockatiels like.

Food Preparation Shortcuts

As a working woman and head of household, I do not always have time to spend cutting and chopping in the mornings or evenings, so I started doing a few shortcuts. Cook up batches of the following items separately: cooked peas, carrots, corn, green beans, lima beans, brown rice, pasta, yams, acorn squash, potatoes, pinto beans, lentils, white beans, pasta, yams, acorn squash, shredded potatoes, and brown rice. Rinse the batches well, cut them up as needed, and freeze them spread out on a cookie sheet so that they do not stick together.

When the items are frozen, the pan is then removed from the freezer, and its contents broken up, placed in ziplock freezer bags, and dated. The same procedures works well with a cooked mixture of pinto beans, lentils, white beans and split peas. In addition, it is easy and fairly economical to purchase a bag of frozen mixed veggies (carrots, corn, peas, green beans & limas) when they are on sale and keep these in the freezer as well.

Then, as needed, open the different bag mixtures, take out some of each, place in a microwave dish, add a little water, and pop everything into the microwave for 2 minutes or so or until heated through.

Dump the hot mixture in a colander, run some cool water over it, so that it isn't scalding hot, and give your bird about a 1/4 cup serving dish of the mixture. They REALLY love it! Your bird will probably make contented little noises when she/he eats and have a mess on his/her beak afterward--not to mention the wall, floor, etc.

Cook enough of the mixture to last for a couple of days and keep it in the refrigerator. Also treat your bird with fruit from the list above. I use the term 'treat' when it comes to fruit since green cheeks definitely have a sweet tooth, and when fruit is mixed into their regular food dishes with the vegetables, they rarely eat the veggies! I found that it's wise to give them fruit at a different time than they are given vegetables. But it is important to provide fruit as a steady part of their diet.

It is equally important to thoroughly wash fresh fruits and veggies that you give to your birds. Any fresh or cooked food that you give your bird should be removed from their cage after an hour or so, otherwise it tends to spoil (bacteria) and is not good for your bird.

Foods to Avoid

Absolutely no chocolate, avocado, coffee or alcohol no matter how much they bob up and down and beg.

• Chocolate is poisonous to animals and birds.
• Avocado is poisonous to birds.
• Dairy products - there are mixed opinions about dairy products. I read an article that mentioned that parrots are unable to properly digest dairy products. Another source mentioned that it causes diarrhea. I made a personal choice not to give my birds dairy products.
• Caffeine should be avoided. Soft drinks, coffee, etc. Coffee, especially, contains some of the same elements as chocolate.
• Alcohol, a well-known poison with documented side effects, is a big NO! I personally believe that anyone who owns a pet should never give their pets alcohol. I often see idiots posting YouTube videos of animals they have gotten drunk and thinking it is so funny. Makes my blood boil!
• Avoid junk foods - anything that is high in fat, salt, and/or preservatives. An occasional bite of pizza crust is okay. Humans already have enough bad habits in regard to these foods but you don't want your conure to become a junk food junkie.