njs@scifi.UUCP (Nicholas J. Simicich) (11/10/88)
In article <1282@inuxd.UUCP>, jla@inuxd.UUCP (Joyce Andrews) writes: > > A primary natural function of hookbills is to spread seeds around. > Madeira (Blue-Front Amazon) puts her head down in the dish and > goes > "BLLBLBLBLBLBLBLBLBLBLBLBLBLBLBLBLBLBLBLBLBLBLB" > > And you think your bird can scatter seeds? Let's have a contest! > > > You should be aware that the common practice of simply providing seed > > mix for the birds does not provide a balanced diet for the bird. You > > Here in the Florida Keys (KoKoMo), everyone has a hookbill. A > favorite food is chicken leg bones (the drumstick). I haven't > given any to Madeira, but others let their birds break the bones > open and eat the marrow. I am afraid of pointed splinters of > bone (the reason you shouldn't give them to dogs and cats), but > my friends tell me that the birds have a better crushing > apparatus than dogs and cats, and the marrow is good for them. > does anyone else feed chicken bones to their hookbills? > > -- > Joyce Andrews King > att!inuxd!jla > AT&T, Indianapolis > (This message brought to you from the Florida Keys via the > miracle of modern communications.) Well, I've heard of and seen lots of hookbills eating chicken bones. If we try to feed some to ours, the greyhounds go over to the cages and beg, and the birds throw the chicken bones at them. I'm serious. We usually offer table food such as vegetables, eggs, slices of fruit, and so forth to our parrots. It is best if we slice the stuff into aerodynamic shapes so that the parrots can get good distance and velocity from them as they throw it as far as they can. An easy supplemental food to feed the hookbills is Monkey Chow, or ZuPreem. They seem to like crumbling the stuff, although I'm not sure how much they eat. But it provides an easy to feed alternative to just seed. We offered it for several weeks before they ate even one piece. Now they eat it all the time. When the birds throw the Monkey Chow to the greyhounds, I'm not nearly as worried. The greyhounds, incidentally, are retired racing greyhounds. ASPCA estimates that 50,000/year are disposed of because they are too slow. We are involved with an organization (non-profit) called the Midlantic Greyhound Welfare League that trys to find homes for some of these dogs. They make good pets for people who are willing to keep a large dog. "Retirement" age for these dogs is two-four years old, on the average. Generally, the dogs are in good health. The owners typically would like to find homes for these dogs, provided that you promise not to breed them. You don't get the papers. email me for info. If you are not in the NY/Tristate area, we will try to find someone who is near you. Give me your U.S. Mail address and we will send you info and an application. Nick Simicich --- uunet!bywater!scifi!njs -- Nick Simicich --- uunet!bywater!scifi!njs --- njs@ibm.com (Internet)