Bea, what do you use to supp. Methionine? I've been giving Sesame Seeds is that enough?

Bea, why do you feel they are all getting too much protein and what % is too much?

Yes, sesame seeds are good, I use them in my gloop, but, right before and at the very beginning of molt, I add a little methionine for good measure.

I have no idea what the exactly right percentage of protein is for every species. I don't think anybody does. If somebody has found out, they haven't posted or published it anywhere... I certainly haven't been able to find it. It's a tricky thing to figure out. First of all because we have hundreds of bird species been used today as companions and, secondly, because one would need to analyze the crop and gizzard contents of wild birds for years monitoring the entire flock under different vectors at the same time. I would assume that it's a very costly and time consuming project that nobody is willing to fund. And that would be for a single species, mind you!

As to why I think that all our birds eat too much protein, I base my opinion on three things:

a) most of the birds we keep are canopy eaters with some partial ground feeders and the geographical areas from which they originally come don't have a lot of indigenous vegetal sources of high protein.

b) the kind of bird food that's commercially available is all high protein: pellets and seeds mixes. Manufacturers of pellets first based their recipes on chicken nutritional needs. They have been adjusting them and improving them but they still use soy beans, peanuts and sunflowers seeds, stuff that is not found in their natural diets. And everybody knows that seed mixes are mostly oil seeds.

c) most people feed them all kinds of bad things like meat, cheese, pizza, monkey biscuits, treats made with peanut butter, or like the lady who is feeding her too toast with margarine (imagine that!). And most opt for the easy way out when it comes to bird's diets, namely, fill up the bowl with pellets or seeds and give them an occasional something they are eating. Even the ones that do try and give them fruits and veggies, in most cases, all they do is just put them out, if the bird eats them, fine, and if he doesn't... well, they tried. And birds will ALWAYS and without exception go for the high protein item in the menu. They need protein to breed and protein is not that plentiful in vegetal matter so, whenever they find it, they are programmed to gorge on it. And so people feed them the wrong food because 'he likes it' and 'he must know better what is good for him'. And when you tell them it's going to kill it, they tell you their bird must be healthy because he looks beautiful not knowing that most show birds die young because they are fed high protein all their lives to produce that perfect, beautiful plumage. And they argue that they know for a fact the bird is healthy because they take him to the vet every now and then and the blood work comes back good not realizing that liver values don't go off until the organ is so damaged that there is very little that anybody can do for the poor bird any longer. I've seen grays only six years old with cirrhosis! Canaries that die by the time they are four and keets at seven years of age because their livers cannot absorb nutrients any longer. Young macaws with xanthomas and amazons with fatty tumors. And let's not even go into the 'bad molts', those are so ubiquitous as to be scary! All because of bad diet. All because of too much protein/oil in their diet. Let's face it, it's real hard to make them eat what is really good for them. And the bird industry doesn't make it easy putting out all the wrong food because the raw material is cheap and easily accessible (better profit) and they need to make it palatable to the bird (high protein) so the owner will continue to buy the product (who is going to buy something the bird doesn' eat?). And it's no good questioning them because they will tell you their product is good and safe and healthy and that they have the studies to prove it. What they don't tell you is that none of the studies compares a wild, natural diet to their product. And that is what I would like to see: what is the long term difference in general health between the bird's natural diet and their product.