Spirulina

Spirulina to give or not.

In my opinion it is a bird owners choice. Sprirulina is a very controversial subject. Some parrot owners are completely against it while others are not. Some people believe it can cause for toe tapping & wing flipping. However, other things can cause these conditions as well.

The only treatment is to find the cause and eliminate it. There is speculation of what causes these conditions and my belief is its diet related. However, its hard to define a single cause. A combination of different things could also cause the problem as well. Some of these theories include:

• Calcium deficiency
• Magnesium deficiency
• Nutritional imbalance
• Food allergies
• Spirulina
• Artificual colors, flavors, preservatives in pellets & processed foods
• Sunflower seeds
• Stress

If you feed commercial store bought pellets, some of these pellets contain spirulina. The reason for so much controversy over this is when one variable of diet is changed the problem symptom goes away. So a parrot on colored pellets could bring on toe tapping or wing flipping changing the pellet could discontinue the symptom. Or some parrots when a calcium supplement was added to their diet developed symptoms and when discontinued  symptoms disappeared. This can be said with spirulina also.

However in my experience with eclectus I have never encountered a problem with spirulina included in diet. If given spirulina should be food grade quality. In my opinion spirulina is a good natural source of vitamins and minerals. It is considered a superfood. I think the reputation is undeserving; moreover, my opinion is that spriulina obtained from contaminated sources is the factor rather than the spirulina itself. So if you chose to use the superfood you should only get it from a reliable source.

So what is spirulina?  It is considered microscopic vegetable it is edible blue-green algae sold as a dry powder. Spirulina is very nutritious, It has 62% amino acid contents. It is world's richest source of Vitamin B12 and antioxidant beta-carotene (20 times that of carrots).  Its also good for us humans as well.

Scientists have stated that spirulina dramatically strengthens avian immune health. Scientists tested a theory that spirulina "acts as a safe, edible broad-spectrum vaccine against bacteria or other disease-causing microbes." There findings were "Spirulina protected birds from infection with the antibiotic-resistant Staphylococcus aureus and E.coli."

All reports appearing in scientific literature document the medical benefits of Spirulina. They all show that Spirulina improves the immune system, feather color & shine, fertility, and that baby birds are protected from otherwise deadly germs.

So what was the conclusion to this study?
"Birds have less sickness or recover more quickly. Fewer problems with feather plucking and better recovery from self-mutilation. Feather quality and coloration reach their peak. Veterinarians observe that infections quickly respond to treatment, and wound healing improves. Spirulina supercharges the avian immune system for better disease resistance and increased fertility."

My honest opinion is you know your parrot and diet; thus, it is the parrots owners decision to add spirulina into a parrots diet or not. Spirulina is some powerful stuff; thus, its term superfood. Truth be told to much of a good thing can be bad so moderation is the key.

I personally give my parrots spirulina just a tiny bit sprinkled on their food every other day. My mother gave it to her female eclectus for years. However just because my parrots have never had issues with it does not mean someone else's parrot will not. Its like us humans some of us or more sensitive to a food/ vitamin/mineral than others. Thus, parrot owners should research the subject themselves and form their own opinion on whether they will include it in their own parrots diet or not.