Instead of Vitamins?

Giving birds vitamins is sort of a slippery slope. I prefer not to give vitamin supplements to Fig because it feels like an excuse to give her lower quality food, also it makes her too hyperactive, and it's a pain to dose out.  But because I cannot exactly wander into a local grocery, or pet store and pick up a bag of Crow kibble, or corvid chow in Japan, nutrition is something that I pay extremely careful attention to day to day, and meal to meal, actually nibble to nibble. It is not easy to tell if a bird is getting good, or proper nutrition even when paying careful regular attention to its energy level, talkativeness, mood, posture, and of course physical indicators like plumage, weight, color, nail and foot condition, , and also by examining waste (not my favorite), etc… It is important to maintain a very close, day to day relationship, and routine with birds so as not to overlook any developing health issues which can arise and manifest quickly, or slowly over a long period of time. I find that giving vitamin supplements to birds can dramatically increase their energy levels, which again, makes me feel like they are healthier, but in the case of caged, captive, or handicapped birds, such as Fig’s case, higher energy is not necessarily the best idea for the bird as it increases wear and tear on her already overworked feet, and injured wing. Still, I do want her to get proper nutrition, so I am sure to give her a very healthy diet. But what is that? It is a never ending study finding the answers, especially with wild, supposedly omnivorous birds.

Two foods I have been giving her which seem to have an equal effect on her cheeriness as vitamin supplements are bran and germ of rice, wheat, oats and barley, and they don't make her so hyperactive.  Mostly I rely on wheat germ, and rice bran which are also feed for her mealworms that I farm. But again, I have no data on how much, or even if these foods are suitable for Crows. I try to listen to what Fig has to say about food, but that is not always a good idea. She will eat worms, and they can give her internal parasites, so she is not fed those. Likewise with uncooked grasshoppers.  She’ll also eat as many French fries as you care to dish out, but too much starch quickly gives her constipation, and gas. I roll her protein, meat or egg, in rice bran, and she seems to love it, as she will spend loads of time carefully nibbling it off and enjoying the sweet flavor. The extra fiber helps rid her of any chance of constipation too.

So, while I have little idea how suitable these foods are for a Crow, to date, they seem to be a very nutritious way to boost her mood, and overall physical health without making her super hyperactive which is the problem I get with vitamins. I also eliminate the problem of administering a regular dose as it is much easier to regulate what amount she eats, than drinks, of something. I know she is getting lots of B vitamins from these two foods because they turn her urine quite yellow.  The boost to her talkativeness is most dramatic and noticable. The nice thing about the rice bran is that it comes with eggshell powder included so it’s a calcium and potassium supplement all in one.

If anyone has any info on rice bran and wheat germ as food for birds of any sort, please inform me, thank you. I eat these foods myself, too, and they have a noticeable effect on my daily brain pep, so I recommend them to people. A quarter cup of rice bran in milk is good fiber, and nutrition for people, that’s for sure; it just tastes like sweet, slightly mushy cereal; it's quite yummy. It is also very cheap, which I am thankful for because here in Japan it is white rice all the time, so I can afford to put the nutrition back on my rice for one dollar for a nice size bag of rice bran. Germ is a bit pricier.  

How Cautious is a Crow?

I put a vertical bar in Fig’s enclosed space where she gets a lot of her daily exercise. When she goes on excursions around town, from time to time, she will leap onto ladders, and railings, and other totally upright bars, just for a bit of climbing or sliding fun, and to show off her amazing foot strength. And, in order to encourage her to actually start jumping on to the vertical bar I installed on the wall in her space, I placed a huge slab of delicious dried crab meat at the top. In order to get the crab meat, which she loves, she will have to leap to the vertical bar, and perch on it. It’s easy for her. The bar is only mounted slightly above her regular perch height, and it only extends 60cm up, so maybe the top is about 20-30 centimeters above Fig’s head. And the perch is only 30 centimeters from her perch, so she only needs to jump a very short way from the horizontal perch to the vertical wall perch. That crab meat has been there for two weeks now. I even tried reducing her daily dish quantity to let her work up a bit of an appetite. No deal. This is how nervous, suspicious, cautious, skeptical, inquisitive…paranoid Crows are. Very, very. It is just a simple wooden perch, which looks exactly like a towel bar, only vertical, and she will not venture onto it, not even for a big slab of crab. I am going to have to have a go at asking her to leap onto it I think. She actually may never touch the thing for years. I even started her out with an inclined perch to transition her, still, she sees the potential for danger, or injury, or maybe she tried it once when I wasn't there and detected a tiny, fearsome bit of a wobble, so leapt right off again. The thing is darn solid folks. Crows simply will not take any risks. It’s amazing, huh? Two weeks that savory crab meat, just sitting there within easy reach. It stone cold flabbergasts me every day when I come home to find it still there.