FARMA Parakeet & Small Parrot Food

The FARMA Parakeet & Small Parrot Food is a thirteen-seed diet for the larger parakeets and small parrots — cockatiels, conures, lovebirds and the like — birds that need bigger seed than a budgie and more oil in the mix.

Key Features

• Thirteen seeds: buckwheat, canary seed, wheat, white, yellow and red millet, peeled oats, paddy rice, bread crumbs, safflower, white sunflower, striped sunflower and linseed
• Sunflower and safflower supply the oil content larger parakeets expect, with millets and canary seed making up the base
• Three ways to buy it: the Budget Mix and the standard Mix in 20 kg sacks, or the 1 kg Special Mix retail bag
• Cleaned and screened, so less dust and chaff in the bowl
• Made in Greece by Farma Friends, a pet-food maker near Thessaloniki that has been blending seed since 1997

Feeding

• One to two tablespoons per bird per day for a cockatiel-sized parrot. Measure it — sunflower-rich mixes are easy to over-feed
• Tip the husks off the top of the bowl every day — a bowl that looks full is usually nothing but empty shells
• Offer fresh vegetables, a cuttlebone and grit alongside. Seed is the base of the diet, not all of it
• Clean, fresh water at all times, changed at least daily in hot weather

Available in: Budget Mix (20 kg), Mix (20 kg) and Special Mix (1 kg)

Good To Know

• Sunflower is fatty and very palatable. A bird left with a full bowl will eat sunflower and little else, which is how seed-fed parrots become obese and short of vitamin A and calcium
• Not suitable for budgies — the seed is too large. Use the budgie mix for those
• Avocado, chocolate, caffeine and anything from the onion family are toxic to parrots. Keep them well away from the bird's food
• Oil-rich seed goes rancid with time and heat. Keep it sealed and cool, and throw out anything that smells sharp or musty
• Birds hide illness until very late. One sitting fluffed up on the floor of the cage is an emergency, not an off day