Parrots are omnivorous, so their diet consists of fruits, vegetables, seeds, and insects. If you want to keep a parrot as a pet, it’s important to remember that they need a particular diet—they need fresh food every day.
Given how easy apples are to get, a lot of parrot owners ask the question: “can parrots eat apples”? Keep reading to find out!
Are Apples Safe for Parrots?
Generally, apples are safe for animals. While many of the fruits we eat are not safe for animals, apples are excellent to feed your pet. They’re delicious, nutritious, and according to bluecross.org, apples can help keep an animal’s teeth clean.
And to answer the question, yes. Apples are safe for parrots. Apples are a highly nutritious snack for parrots, and they’re full of a lot of vitamins and minerals.
Most people who have parrots as pets believe that apples are off-limits for their feathered friends, but we don’t really understand why. Apples are a great treat for parrots because they’re high in vitamins and minerals. The benefits of apples’ high vitamin content alone make them a great treat to give your bird. But what’s even more important are the antioxidants apples contain. These help keep blood vessels in great shape, which improves your bird’s heart health, circulation, and vision.
Sure, there’s some concern about pesticide residue on non-organic apples—and, if you are going to feed your parrot an apple, it should be organic. Organic apples are the best way to get parrots all the good nutrients that you want them to get. For the same reasons that organic apples are better for us—they help us avoid ingesting dangerous toxins that can have long-term negative impacts on our health—organic apples are also better for our birds. Because birds don’t need to eat as much as we do, they can get a much higher concentration of pesticides from one bite of a regular apple than we could.
But in general, there’s no reason why your bird can’t enjoy a bite or two of this healthy fruit from time to time.
How Many Apples Should You Feed Your Parrots?
You know what they say: an apple a day keeps the doctor away. If you’re giving your bird apples for the first time, start small. Like, small. You want to make sure your pet gets the nutrition it needs, but you want to make sure you don’t give them too much either. You might think it’s obvious: just give the parrot two apples and call it good. But this is one of those times when “close enough” just won’t cut it for your feathered friend.
According to animalhype.com, it would be best to give your parrots small pieces of apples once in two days.
Health Benefits of Feeding Apples to Parrots
Orchards around the world have been producing apples for thousands of years. They are a versatile fruit that can be used in sweet or savory dishes, which is why they’re so popular. While we’ve been enjoying apples for a long time, research has only recently shown how beneficial they are for humans.
Turns out, apples are also good for parrots. Research has shown that parrots who eat a diet rich in apples tend to be healthier than those eating other fruits.
While there is no guarantee eating apples every day will help you live and the animals forever, there are several health benefits from eating apples often. Here are just a few of the many benefits of eating an apple a day:
Vitamin C
Apples are incredibly high in vitamin C. When they imagine a parrot, the first thing most people think of is its bright plumage, which calls to mind a tropical jungle. Parrots are high-energy animals, and they need a lot of nutrients to keep up with all the squawking and flying around. One of the easiest ways to improve your parrot’s health is by feeding it foods that contain plenty of vitamin C.
Birds have striking feathers because of their diet, and vitamin C plays a vital role in maintaining parrots’ feathers. If a bird gets too little vitamin C, its feathers will begin to break and it will become more vulnerable to sickness.
The same antioxidant Vitamin C that helps humans heal faster and fight off viruses also does the same for our feathered friends. It means that parrots with sufficient intake of Vitamin C heal faster.
B Vitamins
Apples are a good source of the B-complex vitamins riboflavin, thiamin, and vitamin B-6. These vitamins help ensure that all parts of your body have enough energy to function as they should. Riboflavin and vitamin B-6 play a key role in maintaining a healthy metabolism.
Riboflavin or Vitamin B12 helps facilitate enzyme function. When your body is digesting food, enzymes break down the food and make sure it gets utilized by your cells. Without enzymes doing this work, you would be unable to absorb nutrients from the food you eat (which is kind of a big deal). Riboflavin helps your body to create the enzymes needed to break down those nutrients into smaller parts so they can do their work. Thiamine is responsible for regulating energy and carbohydrate metabolism and activates ion channels in neural tissue.
Vitamin B-6 is for glucose generation, red blood cell and nervous system function, hormone regulation, immune response, niacin synthesis, and gene activation.
Fiber
It is so important to make sure your parrot’s diet is balanced. A great way to do this is by making sure he or she gets plenty of fiber from apples. Fiber from apples helps keep your parrot regular, which is key for their digestive health.
While you get your fiber from whole grains, fruits, and vegetables, it’s a little harder to make sure your parrot gets enough fiber in their diet.
Apple is a rich source of pectin, a soluble fiber that can help to lower blood cholesterol levels.
Cholesterol levels in parrots tend to be high (relatively speaking), so feeding your feathered friend an apple once or twice a week could be an excellent way for your bird to have better cholesterol levels.
Potential Dangers of Feeding Apples to your Parrots
While apples are a delicious fruit for humans and many other animals, they represent an extreme danger for parrots.
There is a lot of information out there these days about the importance of feeding apples to parrots. Pet owners everywhere are increasingly aware of how apples can be beneficial for a pet’s well-being. The truth is, there are also dangers of feeding apples to parrots. Aside from the obvious that parrots are not built to eat a whole apple because they don’t have the right kind of teeth for it, and their intestines are ill-equipped to process them, apples also contain harmful substances.
Cyanide
Apples contain cyanogenic glycosides (These molecules can release cyanide when an enzyme breaks them down). Cyanide is a chemical that is recognized as being extremely poisonous. By definition cyanide is any chemical that contains a carbon atom bound to a nitrogen atom in a CN group, in the other words it’s the chemical formula CN-. Cyanide is poisonous to everyone – young and old, human and animals. It acts as an anti-oxygen compound. It prevents the body from using oxygen to distribute life-giving nutrients.
High Sugar Content/ Xylitol
High sugar, which we know can be bad for humans, so the same rule applies when it comes to our feathered friends.Most fruits and vegetables like raspberries and carrots contain xylitol. Xylitol is a natural sugar alcohol. Consuming xylitol might be okay or tolerable for us, but it is not the same case for parrots.
Parrots don’t react to xylitol the same way ours do, and it can cause severe damage to your bird.
FAQs
Can baby parrots eat apples?
It is a question that many bird owners have since apples are part of the diet of many adult parrots. The good news is that it’s okay for baby parrots to eat apples!
There are a couple of things to keep in mind, though. First, you’ll want to make sure the apple is cut into small pieces and is soft enough for your baby bird to chew. Second, you should remove the seeds and skin.
Can parrots eat apple seeds?
No. If you want to feed your parrot apple slices, it is vital to remove the seeds first so that your bird doesn’t choke on or swallow them.
When ingested, the cyanide in apple seeds will be released into your parrot’s system, potentially leading to serious health problems or even death.
Can parrots eat apple peel?
You have probably seen your grandma peeling some apples and wonder if those apple peels can still be beneficial in some ways after being scraped from the fruit. Instead of tossing them into the trash, you can actually share them with your parrots.
Apple peels are not dangerous for parrots to eat. But it is more advisable to remove the skin from an apple before feeding it to your parrot. This is to avoid feeding them the pesticides from apple peels which can be toxic to them.
Can parrots eat apple sauce?
The answer is a resounding, emphatic yes! Applesauce is both tasty and healthy. They provide plenty of Vitamin C, which is an excellent nutrient for birds. They also have fiber, which can help with digestion if your parrot eats too much seed one day (don’t we all do this?).
Parrots like to eat applesauce for the same reason humans do: because it’s delicious. And nutritious. And because it’s so easy to make. If you have an apple and a blender, you have the makings of an excellent snack for your parrot! Just make sure to remove any seeds from the apple before blending.
Can parrots have apple juice?
Yes, but in moderation. As mentioned, apples are high in sugar, and so with apple juice, which can lead to obesity and other health issues if your bird drinks too much.
Conclusion
If you wish to provide a healthy diet for your parrot and one that is more like what it would eat in its natural environment, it would be well worth considering including some fruits in its diet.
However, not all fruits are suitable for use with parrots, as some contain substances toxic to them. Most parrot lovers agree that apples are one of the highest quality foods in the fruit family. Therefore, you should include apples in your parrot’s diet.