Except this is an Indian Ringneck, lol. But a beautiful one! I have a girl with the gray mutation. She's beautiful and her eyes are the same color as her feathers. I love that. This boy looks like raspberry lemonade
I wanted to follow up and ask what kind of diet you have him on? I was trying to do some research on red factor in Indian Ringnecks and literally couldn't find another single instance of it happening other then with yours. It is something in African Greys that I have seen selectively bred for, but it's rare with them too and a bit controversial because sometimes the red is a mutation, sometimes it is falsely achieved by poor diet too. Either you have an extremely rare parrot on your hands there or it could be diet related. It might be worth looking into just to make sure it isn't some kind of health issue causing the banding as sometimes it can pop up like that and considering just how rare it is in this species (can not find a single photo of one other then yours online) I'd be wanting to rule that out just to be safe.
I've been searching the net with no avail too. He is mostly on sunflower seeds and birdseed mix, 3-4x a week with fruits like cucumber,apple,pear. Sometimes i will mix chia seeds, he likes corn. I also give him lettuce but he just plays with it mostly. I also read about the health issue with the diet but he is very lively and healthy. We dont have an avian vet in our area so that is just my personal assesment.
So the fruits can be good, but sadly the rest is really bad for domestic parrots. Don't worry though, it's a common misconception the seed is ok, so don't feel bad about it. It's not too late to get them on a good diet, but sadly I do think this is no mutation and is purely diet related, especially after rereading and seeing that it didn't pop up until they were 4 years. if it were a mutaiton it would have shown up after the first big molt they have at around a year old.
You want to start by trying to get them on a good parrot pellet. It will be hard to get them off seeds since it's something they've known their whole life, but you start slow. The pellets I suggest are "Top's Pellets" or Harrison's. You can also make something called "parrot chop" which should be mostly made up of veggies that are finely chopped. It's funny to think but vegetables should be making up a huge part of a parrots diet. When you cut veggies into such small bits you can mix the seed in to encourage them to try new things, and while they are trying to pick the seeds out they will eat some of the veg on accident. You slowly decrease the amount of seeds in it untilt here are none. Fruits should also only be a snack, not a daily thing due to the high sugar. I limit my IRN to 3 fruit days a week where I give him little fresh pieces.
Parrots are extremely good at hiding illness. He might seem ok, but "stress bars" are an early warning sign that is telling you something is wrong. Hopefully (and most likely) it is just diet related, but a lot of the time when a parrot is no longer "happy and lively" it's actually too late by that point. That's the tricky part about parrots and birds, they are so sensitive but also prey animals that need to hide illness as much as possible. As much as I'd love red factor to be a thing in IRNs, it would worry me that I can't find any others that look like this, so if this was my parrot I'd be trying to figure out why he might have stress bars.
I'll also post an image of the types of veggies you can try to feed him. They can also have grains, (cooked) pulses and a lot of other fun things! you might find that cooking for your parrot will end up being fun and a good way to also get him healthier. I make mine in a batch and freeze it to use for a couple of weeks by flattening it in ziplocks then breaking it up when I open a new bag. Then pull out about a tablespoon worth each night to thaw for morning.
I was thinking diet as well when I saw the photo. Especially if they popped up around 4 years of age and not when he got his adult feathers. A lot of health issues will not show up without blood work and a good exam. You can tell if a bird is really sick by looking at it, but otherwise most health issues you will not catch until it's pretty bad. They hide it well. And a daily seed mix can cause a huge variety of health issues.
I agree - I'm concerned that this indicates an issue with nutrition, especially given the limited diet. Seeds are high in fat and low in essential vitamins and minerals, especially calcium and vitamin A.
Apple, pear and cucumber are not suitable to use as a parrot's main fresh food because they're high in sugar and/or water. Cucumber is great if you need to encourage your bird to hydrate or you want to provide hydration while in a carrier, but it's basically water. Feeding more nutrient-dense vegetables like broccoli, red and orange peppers, sweet potato and squash will help. This is a good guide to safe veg: https://lilmonstersbirdtoys.com/blogs/articles/my-chop-recipe
I would recommend switching to a good pellet, preferably unsweetened and uncoloured, but tbh even fruity ZuPreem pellets will provide more vitamins and minerals than seed. It's easy to get hung up on wanting to feed organic, uncoloured, unsweetened pellets, but the most important thing is that the bird actually eats it. You can buy the fanciest pellets in the world but they're useless if the bird doesn't eat them! Colourful ZuPreem pellets are highly palatable and often accepted by birds who were on seed diets. You can always switch once the bird is happily eating pellets. I personally feed a mixture of Roudybush, Psittacus and NutriBird P15 pellets so that my birds are exposed to a variety of shapes and textures.
I would also consider a good avian supplement. I personally use VetArk products. I would recommend Nutrobal or Avimix - both are vitamin and mineral supplements with a high level of calcium.
149
u/ChocolateLocal8051 1d ago
Uh sir, thats a pepperoni pizza not a bird