Large Pet Birds

What kind of large birds do we have in NZ?

From what I have seen on various social media groups and what my customers tell me, we have quite a variety of large parrots in New Zealand.

• African Grey
• Cockatoo
  • Black
  • Sulphur-Crested
  • Galah
  • Corella
  • Major Mitchell
• Macaw
• Amazon parrots
• Eclectus

Some people also keep ducks, chickens, geese, which are also large but not parrots.

Large bird diet requirements

There are no specific dietary requirements for large birds other than we know they should not be fed only seed. They should be given a good pellet, fruit/vegetables for extra variety and foraging opportunities, and seeds can be used for training or treats. Non-parrot birds, such as chickens, may need a more specific pellet or grain mix. To be effective, high quality pellets need to comprise at least 80% of the diet.

Eclectus are sort of the odd ones out as there seems to be a lot of discussion on toe-tapping and wing flicking in these birds. From what I have read, this is often associated with diet, and there is some discussion that they should have more fruit, but there is not much scientific evidence either way - seems to be a lot of speculation. Some people have found that pellets specifically formulated for Eclectus work better for them than Harrison's. There are options by Vetafarm, Roudybush, and Passwell.

Parrot Treats family

We have an African Grey and a Corella.

Higgins is our African Grey and he's quite a picky eater. When we first got him, I switched him to Harrison's Coarse, and he happily ate it for about seven years, then one day he woke up and refused. Since then he's been eating Harrison's Fine, I guess it's a bit easier because he can just scoop it up into his beak rather than having to hold each piece in his foot. He also gets a couple of cubes of Power Treats each morning, but sometimes he goes off that too and prefers a couple of sunflower seeds, then after a while, goes back to Power Treats. He also really enjoys chop, various vegetables (especially if warm), and fruit.

He loves the tree we made from sticks and also a cardboard box in which he climbs and chews up piece of paper, he loves chewing on anything, and is particularly drawn to power cables! The whole house needs to be 'child-proofed' just in case Higgins wants to take a nibble. Leather Slices that I placed in his cage is probably the toy that lasted the longest - he's had it for years now and it's still going strong.

Oscar is our Corella. We got him when he was 43 years old, or so we were told. He'd eaten nothing but seeds all his life and apparently was sometimes even given whisky! He had plucked his belly completely bare to the point that the vet thinks it'd never regrow now and the scans showed he had profound arthritis and an enlarged liver. It took me months to convince him to eat pellets. When I first showed him a piece of carrot, he ran away in fear. The only pellet he finally agreed to eat, and now eats very well, is Harrison's Pepper. He also gets a piece of almond every day for a treat. He mostly refuses to eat fruit or vegetables, he sometimes will entertain a small piece of apple or some warm potato, but we still try to give him new options to see what else he might like.

His favourite toy is toilet paper, he does not care for any other manufactured toys, but he will absolutely roll himself into a toilet paper roll, play fetch with it, and push a roll around the room. He cannot fly, so sometimes we take him outside. He seems to love the rain and spreads his wings and yells a lot.