Feeding Your Amazon

The Healthy Bird Cookbook
A Lifesaving Nutritional Guide and Recipe Collection
This book is very informative in the area of diet, what body functions the various vitamins & minerals perform and a wide variety of bird friendly recipes that can be shared with the family or are specifically for your avian companion.

Oh Nuts!!

Here's some nutritional information on a few varieties of nuts. It is always a good idea to be aware of the possibility of mycotoxin contamination in certain foods. Peanuts are a frequently contaminated source for aflatoxin so only human grade sources, or those who test for aflatoxin contamination (Harrison's) should be fed to your Amazon.

We have more information about peanuts and aflatoxins on our Hazardous Products and Materials to Avoid Around Bird/s page. Talking Green Parrot lost a beloved Amazon to mycotoxin poisoning. Her story is also on this page.

Nutritional Analysis of Selected Nuts
Nutrients-gr	Almond	Pecan	Peanut	Walnut
Calories	589.000	667.000	567.000	642.000
Protein	19.900	7.700	25.600	14.200
Carbs	20.400	18.200	16.100	18.300
Total Fat	52.200	67.600	49.100	61.800
Saturated	4.900	5.400	6.800	5.5
Monounsat.	33.900	42.100	24.300	14.100
Polyunsat.	10.900	16.700	15.500	39.100
Cholesterol	0.000	0.000	0.000	0.000
Phytosterols-mg	143.000	0.000	0.000	108.000
Fiber	2.700	1.600	4.800	4.600
Water	4.400	4.8	6.6	3.6
Ash	3.000	1.500	2.3	1.8
Minerals-mg
Calcium	266.000	36.000	58.000	94.000
Iron	3.660	2.130	3.230	2.440
Magnesium	296.000	128.000	180.000	169.000
Phosphorus	520.000	291.000	383.000	317.000
Potassium	732.000	392.000	717.000	502.000
Sodium	11.000	1.000	16.000	10.000
Zinc	2.920	5.470	3.270	2.730
Copper	0.940	1.180	1.000	1.380
Manganese	2.270	4.500	1.110	2.890
Vitamins-mg
Ascorbic Acid	0.600	2.000	0.000	3.200
Thiamin	0.211	0.848	0.664	0.382
Riboflavin	0.779	0.128	0.131	0.148
Niacin	3.361	0.887	14.150	1.042
Pantothenic Acid	0.471	1.707	2.764	0.631
Vitamin B6	0.113	0.118	0.296	0.631
Folacin (mcg)	58.700	39.200	100.600	66.000
Vitamin A IU	0.000	128.000	0.000	124.000
AminoAcids-gr
Tryptophan	0.359	0.199	0.310	0.189
Threonine	0.739	0.253	0.743	0.448
Isoleucine	0.866	0.322	0.997	0.566
Leucine	1.552	0.520	1.928	0.992
Lysine	0.666	0.292	0.992	0.388
Methionine	0.227	0.186	0.263	0.280
Cystine	0.358	0.209	0.329	0.345
Phenylalanine	1.113	0.409	1.467	0.628
Tyrosine	0.705	0.284	1.232	0.439
Valine	1.028	0.386	1.161	0.723
Arginine	2.495	1.105	3.456	2.103
Histidine	0.558	0.227	0.748	0.359
Alanine	0.943	0.338	1.133	0.609
Aspartic Acid	2.349	1.545	3.451	1.475
Glutamic Acid	5.934	1.545	6.094	2.809
Glycine	1.236	0.377	1.773	0.755
Proline	1.255	0.360	1.246	0.553
Serine	0.901	0.376	1.434	0.782

What About Fruits?

Here you'll find an analysis for some of the fruits that are popular Amazon fare. This We will be adding some others later, as well as an analysis of vegetables.

Gumbi eating a home grown cayenne pepper

Here you see Gumbi with one of her favorite food toys, a home-grown cayenne pepper! Per 100 grams hot red peppers contain 29 calories, 78 phosphorous, 1.2 iron, and a whopping 21,600 Vitamin A, along with .22 Thiamin, .36 Riboflavin, 4.4 Niacin and 369 Vitamin C.

NUTRIENT DEFICIENCIES OF SEED DIETS
PROTEIN (AMINTO ACIDS) - Lysine, Methionine, and sometimes Arginine

VITAMINS - Vitamin A, Vitamin D3, Riboflavin, & Vitamin B12

MINERALS - Calcium (Poor Clacium/Phosphorus ratio) & sometimes Sodium

TRACE MINERALS - Iron, Copper, Zinc, Manganese, Iodine & Selenium

by Blake Hawley, DVM

Nutritional Analysis of Selected Fruits
Nutrients-gr	Apple	Banana	Grapes	Oranges	Raisins
Calories	57	92	63	47	300
Protein	0.15	1.03	0.63	0.94	300.00
Carbs	14.84	23.43	17.15	11.75	79.13
Total Fat	0.31	0.48	0.35	0.12	0.46
Saturated	0.051	0.185	0.114	0.015	0.150
Monounsat.	0.013	0.041	0.014	0.023	0.018
Polyunsat.	0.091	0.089	0.102	0.025	0.135
Cholesterol	0.000	0.000	0.000	0.000	0.000
Phytosterols-mg	0.000	16.000	0.000	0.000	0.000
Fiber	0.54	0.50	0.76	0.43	1.28
Water	84.46	74.26	81.30	86.75	15.42
Ash	0.24	0.80	0.57	0.44	1.77
Minerals-mg
Calcium	4.00	6.00	14.00	40.00	49.00
Iron	0.07	0.31	0.29	0.10	2.08
Magnesium	3.00	29.00	5.00	10.00	33.00
Phosphorus	7.00	20.00	10.00	14.00	97.00
Potassium	113.00	396.00	191.00	181.00	751.00
Sodium	0.000	1.000	2.000	0.000	12.000
Zinc	0.04	0.16	0.04	0.07	0.27
Copper	0.031	0.104	0.040	0.045	0.309
Manganese	0.023	0.152	0.718	0.025	0.308
Vitamins-mg
Ascorbic Acid	4.0	9.1	4.0	53.2	3.0
Thiamin	0.017	0.045	0.092	0.087	0.154
Riboflavin	0.010	0.100	0.057	0.032	0.088
Niacin	0.091	0.540	0.300	0.282	0.818
Pantothenic Acid	0.057	0.260	0.024	0.250	0.045
Vitamin B6	0.046	0.578	0.296	0.060	0.249
Folacin (mcg)	0.4	19.1	3.9	30.3	3.3
Vitamin A IU	44.00	81.00	100.00	205.00	8.0
AminoAcids-gr
Tryptophan	0.001	0.012	0.003	0.009	0.000
Threonine	0.005	0.034	0.017	0.015	0.00
Isoleucine	0.006	0.033	0.005	0.025	0.00
Leucine	0.009	0.071	0.013	0.023	0.00
Lysine	0.009	0.048	0.014	0.047	0.00
Methionine	0.002	0.011	0.021	0.020	0.00
Cystine	0.002	0.017	0.010	0.010	0.00
Phenylalanine	0.004	0.038	0.013	0.031	0.00
Tyrosine	0.003	0.024	0.011	0.016	0.00
Valine	0.007	0.047	0.017	0.040	0.00
Arginine	0.005	0.047	0.046	0.065	0.00
Histidine	0.002	0.081	0.023	0.018	0.00
Alanine	0.005	0.039	0.026	0.050	0.00
Aspartic Acid	0.026	0.113	0.077	0.114	0.00
Glutamic Acid	0.016	0.111	0.131	0.094	0.00
Glycine	0.006	0.037	0.019	0.094	0.00
Proline	0.005	0.040	0.021	0.046	0.00
Serine	0.006	0.047	0.030	0.032	0.00