By Leslie Moran
Training our parrots, whether teaching them tricks or improving their socialisation skills, provides them nourishing enrichment in the form of emotional and intellectual stimulation. For many birds, food is a key positive reinforcement reward. Since I specialise in using a balanced food plan for restoring or maintaining a parrot’s good health, I am offering you some healthier choices when choosing training treats for your birds.

I’ve observed that many people use dry sunflower seeds, millet seed and a variety of nuts for training treats, so let’s examine the shortcomings of feeding these foods as they are, and explore ways of making some of them healthier. The concerns with these, and other commonly used training treats, is that they contain extremely high amounts of the omega-6 (O-6) essential fatty acids (EFAs).

Even though the omega-6 essential fatty acid is an essential nutrient, the diets of most people and parrots contain much more than the body needs. In the 2012 published paper titled, “Health Implications of High Dietary Omega-6 Polyunsaturated Fatty Acids”, the authors explain that eicosanoids (potent molecules that regulate inflammation) that come from O-6, cause inflammation. While eicosanoids that come from O-3 are anti-inflammatory.

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