Bananas are a safe and popular fruit to give to your parrot or pet bird as a treat and as part of a balanced diet along with their staple seed food. This tasty treat can be given to your parrot fresh or dried. In fact, my parrot loves banana chips as a treat once in a while.
Unlike some other fruits like apples, cherries, nectarines, peaches, or plums that have harmful pits and seeds, bananas are entirely safe. Therefore, you don’t have to exercise any caution when feeding them this sweet yellow berry, or fruit.
Bananas are a rich source of vitamins and minerals that will make your pet bird strong, healthy, and happy.
Table of Contents
The health benefits of bananas
Magnesium
Magnesium is a very crucial mineral since it supports most of the body’s chemical reactions. Most people and pets do not ingest enough of this mineral in their diet.
Bananas can bridge the magnesium deficiency gap because one large banana has close to 37mg of this vital mineral. Keep bananas in your parrot’s diet for healthy bones, feathers, nerve impulses, and a powerful beak.
An abundance of this fleshy yellow fruit will enhance your colorful bird’s muscle coordination and keep his or her heart healthy.
Iron
Bananas are also a rich source of iron, the mineral responsible for hemoglobin formation. A steady supply of this elongated fruit will supply your pet parrot with just the right amount of iron.
Too little iron can cause anemia, while too much of it can lead to iron storage disease. Bananas, however, will provide the right balance of iron to ensure your bird’s blood is rich in oxygen.
Vitamin A
Ask any vet out there and they will tell you that one of the most prevalent but preventable of avian diseases is hypovitaminosis A. Vitamin A deficiency or hypovitaminosis A is common in parrots that eat a seed only diet.
Peanuts and sunflower seeds are low on Vitamin A. A seed filled diet devoid of healthy fruit like bananas will cause a host of digestive and reproductive issues in parrots.
Some signs of Vitamin A deficiency in birds include lethargy, wheezing, nasal discharge, sneezing, depression, swollen eyes, slimy mouth, gagging, lack of appetite, and foul-smelling breath.
Bananas are jam-packed with A and will keep your pretty bird’s eyes, reproductive, immune system, and feather health in top form.
Vitamin B6
Vitamin B complex is also essential for your parrot’s health, and bananas have it in plenty. This vitamin, also known as pyridoxine, is water-soluble and not stored in the body.
You need to feed Vitamin B6 rich foods to your parrot daily to prevent retarded growth, twisted neck syndrome, convulsions, and polyneuritis. The B-complex vitamins will help break down nutrients for your feathered friend’s body for healthy growth.
Are banana peels safe for parrots?
Your colorful buddy can enjoy their banana peel if it is organically grown. Banana peels are rich in catechins, which have antimicrobial, antioxidant, and cholesterolemic values.
The peel is also rich in energy. Most store-bought bananas, however, are grown in pesticide-filled environments, making their peels unsafe for consumption. The outrageous amount of chemicals in them can cause illness.
You might be tempted to wash bananas first before giving them to your birds, but that does not make the peel safe for your parrot. Some dangerous pesticides will still find their way to your feathered friend’s gut.
Some yummy banana chips?
While parrots can eat both sweet bananas and the plantain variety, you should not indulge them in banana chips. Refined foods have added sugar that will promote digestive, nervous, and endocrine system infections.
Give your pet parrot organic natural bananas to prevent cancer, obesity, gout, anxiety, and feather picking disorders. However, if you love your banana chips and want to share them with your talkative pet, make some healthy sun-dried banana chips instead.
How best to feed bananas to your parrot
- Feed your pet friend raw bananas only, but mix them up with other fruits and veggies for a balanced diet. Cooked or processed bananas will have less nutrition and will be laden with fats and sugars, poor nutritional choices for birds.
- Organic bananas are the safest option for the health of your bird.
- Feed your parrots with green bananas too. They have lower starch content than yellow bananas and are thus a healthier alternative. Plantains, a green and raw banana, have higher levels of essential nutrients than their sweet banana counterparts. Feed them to your pet friend in their raw form.
Conclusion
Bananas are sweet, soft, and so easy to eat. It is not a surprise that birds cannot resist them. Parrots in particular love to peel them off and share them with their human flock.
You should incorporate these sweet fruits into your bird’s daily meals in their natural form. Not only are they filled with loaded with Vitamin A, but Vitamin B6, iron, and magnesium.
