Galah Diet

[goldenvalley50]

My first post to this forum - so pleased to have found this site!
We adopted an 8 year old female Galah about 6 weeks ago - "Gus" as a friend for our older male "Vinnie". The previous owners had only ever fed her a diet of grey sunflower seeds which immediately signalled "alarm bells" to us. We have tried to introduce her to other seeds/foods etc. but she has refused - picks through the seed mix to find the sunflowers! Yesterday we noticed she was looking lethargic (and quite obviously not well) - took her to a vet and he found a "large mass" in her abdomen (following an xray) his diagnosis is fatty liver disease. She is in hospital at the moment and we are unsure whether she will pull through (50/50 chance we have been told). My question is - if she does manage to survive - how do we manage her diet from hereon in? Do we just go cold turkey on the sunflower seeds - introduce pellets/veges/sprouts etc. and just hope that she eventually starts eating.
At a bit of a loss to know what to do. Am really hoping she is going to be okay - she is such a sweetie and hate the thought of losing her. Any advice would be greatfully appreciated.

[avinet]

Sorry to hear about your Galah's problems with fatty liver disease. Hope it makes it through OK.

As you are aware, sunflower and Galahs is not a good mix - perhaps more than any other species of parrot, Galahs seem to be prone to fat issues through poor diet. And as you have found, once a sunflower junkie it is hard to change their eating habits.

When I sold young Galahs I always recommended they be fed a pellet based diet as well as fresh fruit and veggies. That way you have control over their fat intake and avoid the problems of fatty liver, and more commonly, fatty (limpoma) tumours. There are some low fat pellets available that can be good - Roudybush is one company that makes one.

However you knowing what is best to feed and getting the bird to know what is best are two different matters. When Gus comes home the first thing I would do is provide only budgie seed mix, as well as the fresh food bit - and that goes for your other Galah as well. Sunflower, and safflower should not be part of their regular diet - perhaps a sunflower seed or two can be given as a special treat by hand if you are doing a bit of training and positive reinforcement but that is all.

If your other Galah, Vinnie, is eating fresh food, then hopefully, in the absence of sunflower, Gus will copy what Vinnie is eating, and if you have made sure Vinnie is eating only a budgie mix when Gus comes home again Gus should copy. The tricky bit here is that initially if Gus has been pretty sick then he might need to regain a bit of energy and condition first before making too drastic a change - be guided by your vet in making the change.

And even if you start out with the budgie mix, do try to change to pellets for both birds - Galahs above all other parrots will stay much healthier on a pellet based diet.

Fingers crossed that Gus makes it through OK - and to show what a high fat diet can do I will attached photos of a large fatty tumour on Penny, a a lovely Galah, but a sunflower junkie, that was dumped on us when we had our shop. We arranged for an operation to remove it, and the rather gruesome result is also shown - in fact two operations were needed in the end. Those operations were in early 2009, and Penny was then given to one of our customers who had Galahs already and last I heard she was doing great.

So, it is important to have a good diet for Galahs

cheers,

Mike

warning - the squeamish, who don't like to see blood, may not wish to scroll down further

[goldenvalley50]

Thank you so much for your reply Mike. So informative. Latest report from our Vet is that she is a little brighter although not out of the woods yet. Still not eating voluntarily (being force fed through her crop in order to keep her calorie content up). The next couple of days will be crucial to he survival. Will certainly take on board your recommendation/s re pellets and have already started weaning Vinnie off his seed diet. Your photos (although pretty gruesome) are certainly a good reason not to be feeding sunflower seeds and a high fat diet. Will let you know how things turn out. Keeping fingers crossed. Many thanks once again. Cheers, Sharyn