Budgie parakeets > Talking birds > Indigestion

Indigestion

This is usually the result of injudicious feeding or the absence of small stones or gravel in the gizzard. The parrot as well as all other seed-eating birds must have these small stones to help them grind their seeds.

When a bird is troubled with indigestion it is usually sullen, irritable, and sits with its feathers ruffled up. It sometimes appears to have a loss of appetite and at others will eat ravenously.

Give the bird a plain diet of cracked corn, millet seed and padda, with only a few sunflower seeds by way of variety. If it is an old bird, accustomed to drinking water, put a little lime or carbonate of soda in the water, and also a piece of cuttle fish bone in the cage.

If any soft food is given, one could add some pulverized charcoal to it and keep the bird in a warm place. Some recommend giving a little peppermint or a teaspoonful of wine to which has been added cayenne pepper, as a cure.