sudden death of my Quaker, from Tina

by Tina Contocra
(Athens, Greece)

Hi Tracie! Thank you for writing me back. No one had told us we can't feed parrots table food. We always washed the food before he ate it. He had eaten some tomatoes the night before...not the outside of the tomato, the seeds on the inside. He had also eaten a part of a toasted sandwich, basically the bread which has some margarine on it.

He always ate what we ate, no junk food though, just food pare of a mediterranean diet. He didn't like his seed and pellets. We always had to encourage him to eat the pellets and seed.

He would always want to eat from our plates. We would let him. Maybe this was a mistake too?

Tracie, what kind of diet would you suggest a parrot to have? Is it o.k. to be feeding it our food, tomatoes, broccoli, fruits, etc.? I don't know if the organic vegetables are really organic. Many times they are grown organically, but the farm near the organic farm may cause contamination to the organic farm through air, water, etc.

I would love to hear your insight. We are thinking of getting another Quaker bec. we're so sad, but we want to wait a bit before we do. We need to do some more careful research and actually find an avian vet in Greece.

We're not sure where to keep a parrot...is the kitchen unsafe due to there being more humidity? Is food unsafe?

I ask this because the vet we had talked to over the phone at around 12 pm(whom supposedly had experience with birds, parrots, etc.) told us to not bring the bird to the vet...the bird would just suffer...simply keep him in a warm, quiet place and leave him alone....We called the same vet at around 1:45 pm. He asked us for more detailed information, if we kept him in the kitchen,etc...we told him that he spent most of his time in the kitchen.

While we were talking to this vet, Petro died.



Thank you for your time.