it has come to my attention many do not know the importance of a well BALANCED diet that TOTALLY addresses all the needs of our birds complete health issues...

Vitamin A being one of them...so im just gonna address this here now and let some of you know againnn...that commercial seed mixes do not address all the components of whats needed to make a complete balance ratio of their mixes to keep our birds in tip top shape...

this is why i mix my own seed mixes...

anyway...to give a short education to some of you ill now address the importance of Vit A in a birds diet...

some may realize its important to a birds feather condition but most do not..and only think Vit D is important... along with a bird getting frequent baths...vit A can also help with dry skin in birds maybe preventing feather plucking and a birds eyes...however,..that is not its ONLY value...

Vitamin A is vital in helping to prevent many respiratory ailments in fact the lack of it can cause respiratory ailments...and the inability to fight them

its also important to build muscle MASS not muscle TONE which is very different...muscle tone can be achieved thru proper excercise of the bird(flying out time) while muscle mass is what causes many of our birds to look gaunt in the breast area even tho the bird seems to be of a good gram weight. And by gaunt i dont mean the breast bone showing thats really a sick bird or will be very shortly...some birds have some toning in that area but NO MUSCLE MASS...and if its lacking THERE its terrible through out the entire bird.

muscle mass is important as each feather is attached to the muscles and is neccessary to have a good muscle mass so the bird can self regulate its own body temp by raising (puffing up) or tightening its feathers..also aiding in preening and to get to the gland that helps with that.

lack of it can cause irregular feather development from moult to moult just as the lack of Vit D can...and if you dont know what good feathering looks like you all need to learn by carefully looking at different birds...does their feathering lie tight to their body??? or does it sit irregular??? does the feather bear stress bars ...look it up folks...they are called "stress bars" for many reasons...does the feather seem to be elongated more than usual for some of them...???

VITAMIN A is VERY important in a birds diet...some ways to insure this is BEET LEAVES or POWDER...sweet potatoe STEAMED or BOILED for the best way to cook it and leave most of its nutrients in it...carrot also...or CARROT POWDER...and some cooked pasta...served PLAIN can help to build muscle mass even tho it doesnt have vit A...cayenne - crushed red pepper seeds.

i am not going to give here a total education on the importance of all the vitamins and minerals and beta and amino factors along with the medicinal factors of veggies and herbs and spices...and how important they all be BALANCED....sorry...to be quite frank most of you wouldnt care anyway ...and find it all to overwhelming.

hope this let some folks know how important a issue this is to our birds...i dont want to hear how ...my bird wont eat these...keep feeding them often...as sporadically your bird will NEVER eat these things.

and for those of you who...***may care your welcome

forgot to add that vitamin A is important in the synthesis of protein, the chief process of muscle growth...then it was too late to edit

thank you for this post illusive. i am sure it will be extremely helpful to a lot of people. and wonder if we can possibly get it locked in so its always on top. as this is very important for everyone to know.

i know that when i was first doing research and even for a long while after i got my birds everything i was finding was written in a way that was very difficult to understand. i am sure that that is an issue with a lot of people. because a lot of the best stuff it written in scientific form and i sure the heck didnt understand how to read that. i still have troubles at times.

i have come here and directly to you illusive many times after researching diff things myself and not understanding what i am finding and/or finding so many diff answers to the same thing that i become lost.

illusive i want to say thank you again for always being able to put things into terms that i can understand. and we all know that at times it takes the most basic words for me to understand. lol can we say blonde moments. i can truely say when i was starting out i would have been lost without you and this entire forum. i spent hours upon hours reading every single post when i joined. it took me months to get through all of them but im sure glad i did.

this thread is going to be so very helpful to so many people. it is something i believe everyone should read. hence me saying it should be locked to the top of the list in the thread lists. long with the good food threads.

anyways sorry this is so long. i just wanted to say thank you again illusive for sharing so much of what you know with all of us.

bumping this up as there are many new folks coming that should read this
along with the older folks on the forum who should also

Thanks Illusive for starting out this thread and bringing up the issue of the importance of Vit A to our birds. I'm sure many bird lovers/keepers don't know as much as you do about the importance of different kinds of vits in our birds diet, and your explanation on them is really easy to understand. As I've always said..I'm glad to have found this site which enables me to mix my own seed mix. Well..beet powder, carrot powder, cayenne, crushed red pepper..THANK GOD...they are all in JJ's diet already!

thats excellent bebee you have the powders and do the crushed red pepper seeds too...

(example of powder use:(as in beet and carrot or spinach) - it is absorbed into the body within minutes as in the vitamins and mineral
of carrot being A & C, vitamin A is absorbed into the liver and stored then used as needed.)

now as for the red pepper seeds

CAYENNE/RED CHILI PEPPER SEEDS
High in vitamin A, C, iron, calcium and contain vitamin G,
B-complex, magnesium, phosphorus, potassium, and sulphur.

Medicinal benefits:
It is a harmless internal disinfectant, INCREASES THE AFFECTS OF OTHER HERBS, cleanses the blood,
equalizes blood circulation,
increases heart action but not blood pressure, and helps prevent strokes and heart attacks.

so this is why those are soooo very good...to have in their diets

but as you can see and as ive mentioned to someone else ...herbs are to be considered as always being medicinal...so folks you dont want to go out of the ballpark with too many different ones for sure...and always know which ones they will benefit from ...dont just start throwing in this an that from your kitchen spices without first researching them.

there is what is called ***PEROSIS*** which is caused mostly from a lack of essential vitamins and minerals specifically magnesium for one and biotin and pantothenic acid as well as other things...where a slippage of tendon occurs...to the tarsal region of the legs

treatment is listed as reestablishing a NUTRITIONALLY BALANCED DIET AND supplementing the diet with these missing elements....

also says medical or surgical treatment of the individual once the tendon has slipped is not curative...

this is also the result of zinc, copper,biotin, potassium, ***VITAMIN A***, manganese, and choline deficiencies ...MUCH of this in the red **chili** pepper seeds as mentioned again above. (another good reason to keep a PLAIN unflavored mineral block in a cage)

as i mentioned this in the thread IMPORTANCE OF VIT A this is another reason that is so important in our birds as well as a ****nutritionally balanced diet****

Vitamin A as mentioned helps to build muscle mass.... vitamin A is important in the synthesis of protein, the chief process of muscle growth...which would in my opinion also be important to establishing a good muscle mass around the tarsal joints of the legs to help in preventing this...its also so important to growing young babies.

please make sure your bird gets a good nutritionally balanced diet as ive said so many times a lot of the commercially sold seeds etc out there do not provide this...and make sure your birds are fed some of the more essential veggies to its diet...such as carrot ...beet leaves...sweet potatoe...and the other things mentioned above...

NOBODY can count on just becuz a specific commercial feed out there says fortified it has everything a bird needs no matter what the hype is they tell you...its to sell their product....

__________________________________

please read this thread from beginning to end and please note the last post before ordering any seeds/grains from a specific vendor mentioned in that post for awhile...thank you...

www.wineintro.com/forum/ubbthreads.php/topics/414737/1

and this link below.. i want you to keep in mind is from Roudybush products... but a good site explaining a lot of different health issues...this one pulled on VIT A deficiencies...so you can see there is info out there on so much of this....however,,

i want to establish i did not get any of my info above from this site. it was posted here just to show how it does confirm some of what i have said...

www.petmd.com/bird/conditions/digestive/c_bd_Vitamin_A_Deficiency

Im going to add this now to this thread to make it as informative as possible regarding VITAMIN A deficiencies

GOUT DISEASE:

this terrible disease will not show itself till it has progressed extensively first ***inside*** the bird attacking the liver and kidney enlarging the kidney...it also attacks certain areas of the skeletal system with needle like growths...this is a very painful disease and strangely some birds can have this before showing any signs ***EXTERNALLY*** and seem normal.

some symptoms:

restlessness in bird showing a discomfort to climbing and to perching by maybe shifting from one leg to another often...a drooped wing...toes not completely encircling the perch but rather being held outward.

this is a killer disease...and once showing signs of external symptoms prognosis is not good...and there is no reversal treatments to the presence of this already set up within the bird

external signs are usually to legs at joint areas showing swelling with a whitish to light yellow lump and red inflamation around the affected area.

NOTE:

NO ANTIBIOTICS help or have been found to be effective with this...and NO BLOOD WORK shows this...but there is a test that can be done called a *****murexide test... and i wont go into what this test entails here ...but its conclusive...and relatively a very simple test rendering quick results.

theraputic treatment is of course ...be sure bird gets a diet enriched with VITAMIN A...(sweet potatoe, carrot, beet leaves, brocolli and fruits with this however, i wont list those as keets are not fruit eaters generally so do your own research on that please), and...LOWERING PROTEIN levels in diet.

Vitamin A supplements...ie: BEET P0WDER OR CARROT POWDER mixed into your birds reg. diet.

animal soluables are a complete NO NO to birds with Gout Disease...ie: any dairy or... ***egg products or egg mixes...... and certain meats specific to a birds diet...to name a few...wanted to include that for those that feed any sort of egg or egg mixes.

also drafts, dampness, pneumonia will often bring this out...

***added note...was too late to edit again..i keep forgetting things..

Allopurinol...is a medication that is given and has shown to lower the urates of a bird with Gout Disease...

and add red chili pepper seeds to that list of VITAMIN A enriched foods mentioned above...which btw they all love to eat.

for those of you reading this thread...thanks for your inquiring minds ...

I also want to add to this that ...thru extensive research into IMPORTED seeds such as nijer or nyger depending on how seller list the spelling along with rape/canola seed...

these are NOT seeds which are grown here in the U.S.A. and it has been noted that there is NO sort of restrictions to these seeds by this country other than they be HEAT TREATED to eliminate weeds and as a process to STERILIZE the seed so it wont grow...

there is NO restrictions as to whether they are non chemically treated with pesticides or growth enhancement chemicals to provide better yield quantity...

therefore it is NOT GUARANTEED these seeds in just about EVERY commercial seed sold is not or has not been exposed to chemical treatment thereby SLOWLY POISONING our birds...even the wild bird seed sold. Leading to maybe sudden unexplained death in our birds.

i have saved some emails i have made inquiring to sellers of these seed mixes and they will NOT guarantee what they sell to this fact and or at the very least state on the bag a warning to this affect, indicating further they will unscroupulously do what they need to do to try to sell you on the idea that their seed mixes are HEALTHY....so buyer beware...

organic or whats known as wildcrafted is the best way to go for buying seeds/grains for our birds and organic milk thistle is a decent substitute for nyger.

taking time to mix YOUR OWN seed mixes if you truly want to feed a safe diet to your birds is worth the effort...this of course means ordering/buying seeds or grains herb and spices separately.

read also this thread please

http://www.wineintro.com/forum/ubbthreads.php/topics/420796/1

i bumped up this thread as Razara was just asking about a way to better feed their bird i also needed to add some new info...