Overfeeding a Parakeet / Portion Control
Unlike many humans I know, parakeets do NOT naturally tend to overeat :). If anything, people tend to give them too little food, thinking a seed cup is full when really it's just full of the hulls of the seeds the parakeet has already eaten. So most owners I know end up with parakeets who are starving by the time the next seed dish is put into the cage.However, I have read a pellet food maker's recommendation recently that you only serve your parakeets 2 Tablespoons of pellets every day. 1 Tablespoon in the morning, 1 tablespoon in the evening. The maker says that this makes your parakeet "really hungry" before the pellets get there, so the parakeet really enjoys the food.
I respect that every one of us has his or her own opinion on life - but I know that with HUMANS, people used to be told to only eat 3 times a day and not snack in between. This was supposedly "healthy". But what they found was that hungry humans were cranky humans. The body didn't like having energy in a big dose, then no energy at all at other times. The body went through high-low swings, it wreaked havoc with the body, with the happiness. Nowadays nutritionists recommend that people eat those 3 meals, but also have regular food and water as snacks (HEALTHY snacks) at other times. You should never go more than 2-3 hours without a snack. That keeps your body on an even keel.
The argument that you can only really enjoy food when you're starving to death is nonsense, as far as I'm concerned. In my experience, when you're starving to death, you hardly savor the flavor of what you're eating! Instead, you jam it into your mouth quickly because you have a basic body danger situation going on. The same is true with keets. When you feed a starving parakeet, they aren't savoring their food's flavors. They are jamming food into their stomach as fast as they can, because they finally got their needs met.
And the fact that you stress your parakeet every day for a basic necessity can't be good. Your parakeet has to trust you as an owner, that you'll take proper care of them. But how can they trust you if they sit there waiting and hoping and praying that you get to them before the pain in their stomach gets unbearable? That would be like thinking it's great to stress a dog out every night by not taking him for a walk until his bladder is about to explode. How is deliberately adding negative stress into a pet's life a good thing?
I do have to say that some people fill their parakeet's stomachs with UNHEALTHY food. If all you do all day is feed your parakeet sugar, your parakeet is going to end up fat and malnourished. This isn't because your parakeet is eating too much. This is because your parakeet is not eating HEALTHY FOOD. She is filling her stomach on sugary things, not having room to eat healthy things, and malnutrition results. So it is YOUR responsibility to ensure that your parakeet gets the healthy foods before the treats.
Remember, your parakeet is like a human toddler. If you put out in front of a human toddler a bunch of plates, and one with candy on it, the toddler would go for that candy and eat it all up if she could. Your parakeet is the same way. So save millet and sweet foods for special occasions - and make the regular foods healthy ones.
Index of Healthy Food and Water for Parakeets
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