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With all of the complaints about berries and fruit adding too much sugar to our birds’ diets, I think it’s about time we take a deeper look into just how much sugar they really do add. When we take a look at the glycemic load, one the main and leading causes of fatty liver disease, pancreatitis and diabetes, fruit should be one of the last foods we lay blame to.

And when we hear of a bird having fatty liver disease one of the first things that comes to many of our minds is the bird was probably fed too many seeds in its life time. And while this may be true, it is not always the case because there are more reasons for fatty liver disease then just being fed too many seeds.

Fatty liver disease can be the end result of a diet too high in “bad fats” for too long, or a diet too high in animal protein for too long, or too many toxins both ingested and/or breathed in during a bird’s life time, or too many illnesses and/or disease that placed stress on a bird, or the use of too many pharmaceuticals to control those illnesses and/or diseases, metal toxicity, or just too much stress in a bird’s life time.  So you see there are many reasons a bird can develop fatty liver disease, we can’t just rush to the conclusion that a bird has been fed too many seeds in its life time.

The important point to be made is that we catch it in time to do something about it and save the bird’s life.

Droppings: Probably one of the first signs of a bird having fatty liver disease will be signs in the bird’s droppings. And this is why it is so important that a bird is on a fresh, whole-food diet allowing the bird to produce three distinct parts in its droppings, the feces (the dark worm-like part), the urates (the white part) and the urine (the clear watery part). When we know what the droppings should and should not look like then we have a way to help protect our bird from becoming too ill to survive.

I will go over the three parts only in short version because this post is not about droppings per se as much as it is about fatty liver, yet you need to know what you are looking for in case of fatty liver in your bird.

Feces: The feces should be well-formed, much like a worm, and it should take on the color of the solid foods you are feeding if you are feeding a fresh diet. In other words if the main part of the diet are dark green, leafy items then the feces would be dark green. If the main part of the diet is dark berries like blueberries then the feces would be dark purple.  But they should always be well-formed. If they are not, if they are loose or “flat”, then it is possible your bird is not eating enough, it may not be absorbing its nutrients, or your bird may have some amount of diarrhea.

Urates: The urates should be bright white. Sometimes they will be slightly off-white to almost light yellow, but bright white is the preferred color. Sometimes the urates are non-existent.  If they are non-existent it could be that your bird is not receiving enough protein in its diet, but this is not always the case, it could be that your bird is efficiently absorbing all of the protein it is consuming. How do you know? Is your bird experiencing any feather-destruction? This is one very good sign. If your bird is engaging in feather-destruction AND you do not see any urates, it is possible that your bird is not receiving, or absorbing, enough protein in its diet. Regarding the color of the urates, if your bird’s urates are definitely yellowish to yellow in color it’s time to begin thinking “fatty liver” problems and begin to research what you should do. You may want to consider an immediate trip to your licensed avian veterinarian to either confirm or lay your concerns to rest.  The urates can take on other discolorations too, but I will not cover those in this post.

Urine: The urine should be clear in color, or they can sometimes take on some of the color of the foods you are feeding your bird if you are feeding dark-colored foods, but mostly the urine should be clear. If you are feeding a fresh diet you will most likely see a fairly large amount of urine, this is normal. If you are feeding strictly and only a highly processed, dry kibble you probably will not see urine, it will be mixed in with the feces and urates all in one big, bulky dropping.

Okay, so now we have an idea of what our birds’ droppings should and should not appear like.

Let’s go a little deeper into nutrition regarding the health of our birds’ liver and the necessary nutrients to keep their liver healthy.

Traditional thinking is still in the dark ages regarding proteins, fats and carbohydrates to a large degree.  We are cautioned to limit the amount of protein, fat and carbohydrates we feed our birds.  But no one really tells us what to feed our birds in place of those. Our exotic birds require those nutrients to thrive! How do we provide those nutrients without tipping the scale to the point of fatty liver disease?

Essential Nutrients:

It’s not that we cannot feed those nutrients to our birds; it’s the kind of proteins, fats and carbohydrates we feed to our birds that matters.

Our exotic birds are, well, “exotic”, originating from wild regions, mainly Forest regions, either wet forests or dry forests where Nature provided their ancestors with very specific kinds of proteins, fats and carbohydrates. Unfortunately we have not yet honed in on these facts yet, we seem to want to transition our birds to more of a human type of diet. “Humans” our birds are not.  They do not have a digestive tract like ours, theirs’ is narrow and short, less complicated than ours, they need foods that process, digest, absorb and metabolize much, much quicker than the foods we consume.  And this is exactly what Nature has provided for them in their Native habitats.

Science has established that there are “essential” nutrients in the form of proteins called “amino acids”, in the form of good fats called “lipids” more commonly understood today as “omegas”, and essential carbohydrates called “monosaccharides”.  Everyone is pretty much in agreement on the essential-ness of the amino acids and the lipids nowadays, although it has taken a very long time for everyone to agree on the necessity of “good fat”.  Now we are working on the necessity of “good carbohydrates”.  Many people still do not understand the “essential carbohydrates” and yet Nature has provided these for our exotic birds in abundance in their habitats!

Protein: While the amino acids that make up the more common proteins are important to the health of our exotic birds, commercial bird food manufacturers have literally been misinforming us of how these proteins are metabolized for decades, it is not as simple as providing a few grains such as corn, rice or wheat, or even soy, like we commonly find at the top of the list in these commercial bird foods. It is not as simple as adding a little synthetic “L-methionine” sulfur-containing amino acid, an animal amino acid, to ensure the absorption of the plant proteins aforementioned at the top of the ingredient list in the commercial bird foods.  This is where it becomes very tricky and involved in preparing a commercial bird food mix because exotic birds in the Wild receive most of their proteins from plant proteins, yes, but not from grains found at the top of the ingredient list in commercial bird foods. Exotic birds receive most of their plant proteins from berries, fruit, seed, nuts, tender young grasses/leaves/herbs. They only receive a small part of their protein requirements from animal protein via the larvae and insects buried in the berries, fruit, seed and nuts they consume.

So why do our birds need an abundance of the animal amino acid “methionine” in their diet if most of the protein they consume is “plant protein”?  They don’t.  They do need lots of “proteases” in order to metabolize plant proteins and these are found abundantly in berries and fruit, the very foods Nature placed in their natural habitats! These proteases are digestive enzymes that break the plant proteins down into smaller units of protein that are easily and readily absorbed and metabolized into the metabolic system. But proteases are not “stable”, meaning they do not hold up well during manufacturing processes like extrusion or pressure or heat like highly processed commercial bird food is exposed to. And this, my dear fellow bird-lover is exactly why we have been misinformed about protein nutrition, the correct source,  and how it is metabolized in our exotic birds, because commercial bird food manufacturers have not yet figured out how to place plant proteases in mass-produced foods without destroying them, so they tell us our birds need the animal amino acid methionine in order to metabolize protein. While there is a small amount of truth to this, most of this logic is largely incorrect.

Plain and simple, our exotic birds thrive on plant proteins because they are primarily frugivores and herbivores, not carnivores that consume large volumes of animal protein. And for any “animal protein” they do consume, in the way of larvae and insects found buried in the berries, fruit, seed and nuts they consume in the Wild, those sources carry with them the amount of the amino acid methionine necessary for the absorption of that animal protein.

This is how Nature operates, for every source of nutrition it offers, that source normally carries with it most of the other nutrients necessary for the absorption of the main nutrient in that food source. This should tell us something, when a commercial bird food manufacturer has to add a synthetic nutrient to their food; it is because that nutrient has been lost during the manufacturing process.

Fat: Regarding the topic of “good fat” in our birds’ diet, or “lipids” or now more commonly known as “omegas”, the main omegas in their diet are 3, 6 and 9 and GLA (gamma linolenic acid).  By far the most necessary of those omegas is omega 3. Omega 6 is found so abundantly that it has become necessary to limit it in all living creatures’ diets. Too much omega 6 and inflammation of the arteries as well as muscle tissue and connective tissue can set in. So it is absolutely vital to make sure our birds receive plenty of omega 3 which counteracts omega 6; omega 3 actually lowers blood cholesterol and reduces inflammation and also helps to remove plaque from arteries and the blood vessels in the brain when consumed with GLA found in hemp oil. This is very important in controlling fatty liver disease. A terrific source of omega 3 is flax seed oil, mango and papaya.  So when we hear that a bird has been fed too many seeds and this is why it has fatty liver, part of the problem that has come from “too much seed” is the inflammation associated with the omega 6’s in the seed because most seed is loaded with omega 6’s. This is why we have to know which seeds are the most nutritious for our birds. Sunflower seed has gotten a bad rap as being “the” bad seed when many, many seeds contain just as high amounts of omega 6’s.

In addition to seed being high in omega 6’s most seed is also high in the amino acid “Arginine” which produces a gas called “nitric oxide”.  This gas causes the blood vessels to “vibrate” and in turn causes an itchy and tingling effect. If a bird that is a feather-destroyer consumes these high-Arginine seeds it may cause the bird to pick and pluck more because of the itching. Nuts are also high in Arginine.

Obviously the kinds of fats we don’t want our bird to consume in quantity are animal fats, but they do have a place in the diet at specific times. For instance, if your bird is low on protein in its diet, which can be evidenced by feather-destruction, you might want to feed it hard-boiled egg for 4-8 weeks. But you have to be careful about how much egg you feed your bird if it has fatty liver. Specifically the yolk of the egg contains the lousy LDL cholesterol. But the yolk also contains the B12, iron, choline (Research has found that a diet lacking in choline contributes to fatty liver. Alfalfa grass is high in choline.). But if your bird has fatty liver you will only want to feed the white of the egg which does not contain any fat, only protein. Egg is mostly collagen which is an easy to digest and readily absorbable form of protein that contains the right amount of the animal amino acid methionine to aid in its metabolism.

Never, never do we want to feed hydrogenated fats to our birds like we find in highly processed foods, these gum up and form plaque in the arteries.

But feeding lots of naturally-occurring fatty acids that are found abundantly in berries and fruits, especially in mango and papaya in the form omega 3’s, are wonderful and healthy sources of good fats. We often overlook the fact that the very foods Nature provides for our exotic birds in their natural habitats contain the naturally-occurring fatty acids (good fats) that our birds’ systems require to thrive! When our birds consume a high amount of the omega 3’s via the berries and fruits they were designed to consume, then the other fats from the seed and nuts do not present as much of a problem because everything is in balance. We have our birds’ diets out of balance by feeding too many seeds and nuts in relation to the amount of berries and fruit we feed them. It should be just the other way around, lots and lots of berries and fruit to increase the omega 3’s, then on down the food line with the seed and nuts in the correct ratio. While the kind of plant fats in the seed and nuts are important for our birds, they must be in balance, in ratio to their overall diet. This is why so many birds have to go through a “detox” from the seed and nuts for such a long period of time while recovering from omega 6 and Arginine overload, to both detox from those nutrient-overloads and to clean their liver from an overload of those specific fats along with a possible overload of animal fats if too many have been fed over an extended period of time.

Carbohydrates: Now on to the essential carbohydrates; yes, there really are essential carbohydrates but not very many nutritionists are recognizing this fact yet. The most essential carbohydrates for any warm-blooded creature are Glucose, Galactose, Mannose, Fucose, Xylose, N-Acetyl-Glucosamine, N-Acetyl-Galactosamine, and N-Acetyl-Neuramanic Acid.

Essential carbohydrates are the nutrients that literally cause all cells in a living creature to communicate with each other, without these glycoproteins a living body would be in total chaos, they literally tell the body how to interact, how to engage with its own individual systems to hum along in perfect unity.  When the body doesn’t communicate properly dis-ease begins to set in. Consuming these glycoproteins help to prevent viral, bacterial and fungal infections, bottom line, they stave off illness, disease and other disorders. They also enhance wound healing, increase calcium absorption and help prevent dementia. Glycoproteins protect the liver, kidneys and endocrine system, helping to build a healthy auto-immune system overall.  They are basically Nature’s very own “probiotic”.

But you cannot find these essential glycoproteins in just any old food, they are specifically found in abundance in berries and fruit, dark tender young grasses/leaves/herbs, but most abundantly in dark berries and the dark skins of fruit. Again, isn’t it amazing that Nature has provided these specific foods for our exotic birds in their natural habitats? I think so.

Nutrient Combining

So how do we begin to combine all of these nutrients to help prevent or control fatty liver disease in exotic birds?

You may have noticed a common thread through this post, plant protein, plant fats and plant carbohydrates. Why? Our birds are primarily frugivores/herbivores. Plant foodstuffs are indigenous to their natural habitats, but specific foodstuffs that were there long before humans came in and began planting crops of vegetables, grains and legumes.  Plants like berries, fruits, trees, seeds, nuts, bushes, grasses and herbs. These are the kinds of foods we need to be feeding to our exotic birds to both prevent and manage fatty liver disease in the correct and balanced proportions.

While seed has taken a bad rap for causing fatty liver disease, it is not seed per se that has caused fatty liver, it is the misuse of seed in the diet, the over-use of seed. Without the correct amount of plant proteases, found abundantly in berries and fruit, to help with the absorption of the protein in the seed, without the omega 3’s from the other foods, the nutrients in the seed will over-power other nutrients and lend to fatty liver disease.

Folks fatty liver disease is about balancing our birds’ diets, not about removing certain foods, unless they are naturally harmful foods all together like hydrogenated fats, starchy grains and legumes that are not easily metabolized by parrots because of the insulin stress it places on the pancreas, or too many animal proteins for an extended period of time that are high in lousy LDL’s. (Egg protein is fine for a short period of time to re-build the protein level in a bird lacking in protein. Yolk should be avoided in a bird with fatty liver disease.)

We have been told to remove protein from our birds’ diets because it causes fatty liver disease.

We have been told to remove fat from our birds’ diets because it causes fatty liver disease.

We have been told to remove carbs from our birds’ diets because they cause fatty liver disease.

Well if we remove all of these nutrients what’s left to feed our birds?

You see my point?

There has to be good proteins, good fat and good carbs to feed our birds.

When we look at the foods Nature naturally provided to our birds in the Wild it is easy to recognize what foods our birds should be consuming.

Plant proteins for the most part with only a small amount of “animal protein” in the way of larvae or insects; good fat making sure we tip the scales in favor of the omegas that will be constantly cleaning the arteries, reducing inflammation and lowering overall cholesterol; and the correct carbohydrates Nature intended for our birds that contain the essential monosaccharides, the most simple and basic carbohydrates to metabolize.

If we remove the protein then our bird begins to suffer a protein deficiency and all lean muscle mass, including the heart begins to suffer. In addition we will begin to see feather-destruction as well as an unhealthy beak and talons and dry skin. If we remove the fat it would cause the carbohydrates to be metabolized much faster and our birds would want to consume more “carbohydrate” foods in order to feel full and satisfied thus causing a propensity for obesity adding to fatty liver disease and the possibility of diabetes. If we remove the carbohydrates, or exchange the correct kind for the incorrect kind we cause a metabolism problem because now we are feeding too much fat even if we are feeding “healthy fat” and this strains the liver in its attempt to metabolize such a large amount of fat, there is literally no other nutrient to help break the fats down and flush them from the liver, because that’s what carbohydrates do, they help break fat down. So the fat that is consumed, even if we feed healthy fats, would end up getting stored in the liver without the proper carbohydrates to break them down and help flush them from the liver. Or if we feed the incorrect kind of carbohydrates in the way of grains and legumes that contain starch then they break down into hard to digest sugars, not readily absorbable simple sugars like the fruit sugars, and this starchy sugar gets stored in the liver along with the fat and contributes to the fatty liver disease.

No, what our birds need is a properly balanced diet that includes all of the above nutrients in the form of foods their bodies readily recognize as “useable” sources of nutrition designed specifically for their bodies.

Glycemic Load: In addition, research shows that foods with a high glycemic index adds to fatty liver disease, therefore it becomes obvious that grains and legumes not only add to the problem but probably helped cause fatty liver to begin with because they do not break down easily, they require a lot of work by the pancreas requiring insulin and the digestive enzyme amylase to break down. For instance brown rice has a glycemic load of 22 and white rice 18. And black beans are 14, and pinto beans are 15. Corn has a whopping glycemic load of 75! Wow! And wheat germ is at 24. Yams and sweet potatoes come in at 16 and 17 respectively. Butternut squash at 8. Soybeans and edamame is a lot better at 6, but then you have the phyto-estrogens to deal with that may upset your bird’s delicate hormonal system, among a lot of other issues that I will not delve into.

But then take a look at the glycemic load of blueberries, they are only 6. And blackberries only have a glycemic load of 4! Mango has a glycemic load of 8 and papaya of 3! Raspberries have a glycemic load of 3! I really don’t need to go on to prove my point that we have literally been adding to the problem of fatty liver disease by feeding our birds an improper diet based on poultry science and human-based diets!  It’s obvious that we should be feeding our birds the correct plant-based diets their bodies were meant to consume based primarily on berries and fruits containing the natural pectin full of polyphenols abundant in anthocyanins specific to dark berries and the dark skins of fruit. Go ahead and look up “anthocyanins” online. I can almost guarantee you will find how wonderful they are in preventing disease as well as an aid in healing many illnesses. And they are much more abundant in dark berries and fruit than any other food source.

I will reiterate like I have so many times in so many of my articles, the pectin found in berries and fruit act like a sponge both absorbing toxins and gently flushing their delicate digestive tract of toxins while also delivering abundant nutrients in the form of the very nutrients we have discussed in this post; plant proteins with their proteases for metabolism, fatty acids such as omega 3’s but also many of the other fatty acids, and all 8 of the essential carbohydrates in just the right amounts, in a low glycemic load, along with essential vitamins and minerals are, in my opinion, the missed nutrient source over the decades for our exotic birds!

Now what to do if you suspect your bird is suffering from fatty liver disease. Well first thing, take it to your licensed avian veterinarian and have it checked out. And you can also begin it on a liver detox program at home to further aid it in expelling the bad fat build up as well as offer your bird liver support. I have formulated an Herbal Liver Detox & Support for use with your bird if you are interested in using it. All you need to do is join our Facebook community “Growing Feathers” to find it and begin using it. I use it every so often on my birds just to make sure their livers remain in tip-top shape!

In the meantime though, please consider re-thinking how you might be feeding your bird. Think strongly about what your bird would really consume in the Wild, what its DNA is designed to eat. Folks, evidently we have not gotten our exotic birds’ diets correct in the past decades or else we would not see so much illness and disease, don’t you think it’s time to re-think the diets of our exotic birds? I do.

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