ooblick@intercon.com (Mikki Barry) (08/13/90)
After spending a day in the Nekton vitamin booth at the AFA convention, I thought I'd pass on a few tidbits of information that I learned from the US Nekton representative. 1) NO food can possibly contain all the vitamins, minerals, and amino acids that a bird needs for optimum health. As much as pellet makers (and some seed makers) would like you to believe, a pelleted diet can't give a bird everything s/he needs. Even fruits and veggies as a supplement may not be enough, depending on the type of food, freshness, etc. and, of course, whether the bird will eat it or not. Vitamin supplements should be given as a matter of course, and will not result in toxicity, since they don't contain high enough doses of the vitamins that birds cannot eliminate. Of course, if you decide to feed a whole bottle of vitamins, you may run into a few problems, but most people aren't that stupid. 2) The Association of Avian Vets. recommends Nekton over all other vitamins. Of course, that doesn't say too much since any vet can be a member of the association, however many of the country's best avian vets spoke at the convention and recommended Nekton. 3) Nekton Bio, which is used through moulting and feather problems, contains all of the vitamins of Nekton S, as well as more amino acids, etc. that are specific to feather growth. Something I didn't know is that Nekton recommends that you feed EITHER Bio OR S, but not both. Both won't hurt the bird, but you are wasting vitamins that way. 4) Feather picking can also be caused by mineral defficiency. Nekton makes a product called MSA, but I personally use Vionate. Both contain good levels of calcium and other necessary minerals. But you have to be careful that your protein levels fed in other foods are low enough (i.e. 16 or less for maintenance diet, 18% or less for breeder diet, and you can't leave a bird on breeder diet all year) so that the high protein combined with the high mineral content doesn't begin to calcify organs. I have a cockatiel who just died as a result of high protein levels in breeder diet fed to her throughout her life that was supplemented with calcium supplements. By the time I got her last year, the damage was done. It was very sad. The calci- fication of the organs shows clearly on an x-ray. NOTE: I don't work for Nekton. I was a convention volunteer who was placed in the Nekton booth. Mikki Barry Natural Intelligence Aviaries