Dear Parrots magazine,
Buy organic!
For the last 14 years, we had in our family a Green-cheeked Conure, called Midgie, he is the jewel in our family, well my husband and our three daughters adore him. He has always been a comical little chap and has kept us amused every day we have had him. He is fed mainly on a well-known brand of parrot food together with a variety of fruit and green leaves. He has a good appetite and will have ago at just about everything we give him.
He has always been alert, sometimes too alert, so when we noticed he was becoming a little less energetic, we became concerned. After about two weeks, we were getting quite worried so took him to our local vet, who wasn’t an avian only vet, but had a keen interest in parrots. He checked him over and made a call to another colleague, but they could not come up with anything to account for his lacklustre behaviour that could account for the reduction in activity. We were all puzzled. However, the vet our vet referred to was quite a fan of natural and organic foods. So this is what we started to investigate. But couldn’t work it out as nothing had changed with his diet. But had it?
One of our daughters tends to deal with his food and we found out that she was buying some fruit and veg from a different source, a local market. This was the only thing we could think of and that the quality was not as good. So with advice from both vets, we chose to go organic and not back to where we had always bought the fresh food from. We were astounded as Midgie started to get back to his old self, although it took quite a few weeks. The only thing we could think of was that there must have been something on the fruit and veg that affected him.
Simple conclusion – always buy organic for your loved pet companions. Thought your readers would be interested in our story.
Anita Gregson, by email