ABSTRACT
Birds that don't eat enough run a great risk of developing nutritional and metabolic problems and dying. The fastest and often safest way is by delivering nutrition through a feeding tube introduced into the crop. An additional advantage of tube feeding sick birds is that the commercially available formulas often have a better composition than the average diet of many pet birds, so that the patient also receives other essential nutrients in addition to energy and fluids. The type of food used for tube feeding depends on the species and its natural diet. In birds that are nauseated or have an abnormality in the crop itself, the volume should be halved. This means that a smaller volume must be administered more often to still provide sufficient nutrition. The amount of food introduced should be sufficient to prevent weight loss in birds with a healthy body condition and to gradually increase the body weight of thin birds.
