Pionus fresh foods!!

We feed sprouted seeds and grains, chopped leafy greens (kale and dandelion), beets, carrots, yams, celery, green beans, green peas, broccoli, cucumbers, okra, and some dry seed. This is how our basic diet typically looks, although the exact ingredients vary from week to week.

Our philosophy regarding diet is to feed as natural a diet as is possible in captivity. In the wild, exotic birds have access to a large variety of nutritious fresh foods that vary as to season. We cannot duplicate the diets that various species would eat in the wild but feeding a large variety of fresh vegetables , fruits, and grains comes the closest to this. We are often asked if we recommend either a seed diet or a pelleted diet and the answer to that is neither. Instead our diet is based on sprouted grains and seeds and raw and cooked vegetables with some fruits also.

To the sprouted grains we add a variety of fresh vegetables and fruits in season. These vary due to availability and season. Fresh vegetables that we recommend include broccoli, peppers (hot peppers are ok), green beans, peas, celery, cucumber, corn on the cob, squashes, and okra. Thawed frozen vegetables are a close second to fresh, if fresh ones are not available/possible. Recommended fruits are apples, papayas, mangos, oranges, pomegranate, platano bananas, cactus fruits, grapes, berries, and figs. Please do not feed dried fruits out of a package to your birds and think they are getting all the nutrients that fresh ripe fruits provide! Dark green leafy greens such as kale, mustard, dandelion, Swiss chard, arugula, escarole, turnip tops, and beet tops should be fed often. We boil root vegetables such as beet roots, carrots, yams, sweet potatoes, and turnips for about thirty minutes, cool, and then chop into small pieces. Boiling these roots increases their digestibility and palatability.

A great place to get a sprouting kit is China Prairie Company. AFD-Micrograin

Human table food such as pasta, scrambled eggs, rice, cooked beans, crackers, for example, are ok if fed in small portions. Too much animal protein in the diet is NOT GOOD so feed SMALL AMOUNTS of egg, cheese etc. Birds cannot properly digest milk products so feed these sparingly, if at all. Never feed avocado (guacamole) or chocolate to birds.
tip: We do not recommend that meat of any kind be fed to most psittacines. Chicken or beef that is not thoroughly cooked can transmit dangerous (if not fatal) bacteria such as Salmonella and E.coli if fed to a bird. Also, too much animal protein in the psittacine (very large majority of species) diet is NOT GOOD.