![Can Budgies Eat Celery? [FEEDING GUIDE]](https://www.inpetcare.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/11/Can-Budgies-Eat-Celery.jpg)
If you love budgies as we do, you must be very cautious about what you feed them. Below is the research we did to find out whether they should be eating celery.
Can budgies eat celery? Budgies can eat celery, however, nutritionally celery has a high water content compared to other nutrients. Therefore, you should feed celery sparingly. When feeding vegetables and greens to budgies always go for the dark green ones as they offer more nutrition.
As a rule of thumb, fruits, vegetables, and greens should make about 20-25 % of budgie’s daily diet. While pellets should make about 75-80% of your budgie’s daily diet.
Offering pellets to your budgie is your best bet to ensure they get the required nutrients throughout their different development stages. Bird pellets are made with the bird’s nutritional demands in mind.
Nutritional value of Celery
The table below shows the nutritional content of 100g servings of celery. Source.
| Nutrients | Value | units |
|---|---|---|
| Water | 95.43 | g |
| Energy | 16 | kcal |
| Protein | 0.69 | g |
| Total lipid (fat) | 0.17 | g |
| Carbohydrate, by difference | 2.97 | g |
| Fiber, total dietary | 1.6 | g |
| Sugars, total including NLEA | 1.34 | g |
| Calcium, Ca | 40 | mg |
| Iron, Fe | 0.2 | mg |
| Magnesium, Mg | 11 | mg |
| Phosphorus, P | 24 | mg |
| Potassium, K | 260 | mg |
| Sodium, Na | 80 | mg |
| Zinc, Zn | 0.13 | mg |
| Copper, Cu | 0.035 | mg |
| Selenium, Se | 0.4 | µg |
| Vitamin C, total ascorbic acid | 3.1 | mg |
| Thiamin | 0.021 | mg |
| Riboflavin | 0.057 | mg |
| Niacin | 0.32 | mg |
| Vitamin B-6 | 0.074 | mg |
| Folate, total | 36 | µg |
| Choline, total | 6.1 | mg |
| Vitamin A, RAE | 22 | µg |
| Carotene, beta | 270 | µg |
| Lutein + zeaxanthin | 283 | µg |
| Vitamin E (alpha-tocopherol) | 0.27 | mg |
| Vitamin K (phylloquinone) | 29.3 | µg |
As budgie owner, you should note that they are vulnerable to obesity, iodine deficiencies, and other nutrition-related problems.
Benefits of Feeding Celery to Budgies
Water
As mentioned earlier and as shown in the table above, water is the highest component of celery. Other veggies that have a similar nutrient profile include head and iceberg lettuce.
Keeping your budgie or any other pet bird is very important to maintain its health especially for the digestion of dry feeds.
Offering veggies with a high water content though not recommended as a sole way to keep your budgie hydrated can help with hydration.
Fresh and clean water should always be available in your budgie’s cage at all times. If you do not have clean and non-chlorinated water, you can opt to use bottled water.
Offering celery once in a while will also help with hydration, but remember to combine it with dark green veggies and greens that have more nutrients. Such as bok choy, asparagus, cucumber, carrots, kale, romaine lettuce, spinach, and cabbage.
Vitamins
Vitamins form a very important part of the budgies nutritional requirement. Vitamins help in the utilization of minerals and also affects the appearance of your budgie.
Some of the symptoms to look out for when determining whether your pet bird has vitaminin Deficiency includes.
White spots around their beaks, wheezing breathing, sneezing, slimy mouths, gaggling sounds, restlessness, diarrhoea, crusty nostrils, loss of appetite, and dull feathers.
If your pet bird is on a pelleted diet, it will be able to get most of the vitamins that it needs from the pellets.
However, if your budgie is on a seeds diet, you will need to offer it vitamin supplements or feed it with veggies that have a high vitamin A content such as carrots and watermelon.
Vitamin A
Like all veggies celery too has vitamin A, though in short supply. Therefore, celery should not be used as a substitute to provide vitamins to your pet bird.
Vitamin A is responsible for maintaining your budgies’ vibrant colour, immune system, growth and development, production of hormones, the response of the immune system, formation of the epithelial, mucous, and vascular membrane.
Vitamin A should always be in your budgies’ diet since its deficiency will largely affect its reproductive, immune and digestive and respiratory systems.
Apart from vitamin A other vitamins available in celery includes.
| Vitamins | Benefits | Deficiency effect |
|---|---|---|
| Vitamin E | antioxidants that prevents oxidative damage and stress from free radicals | presence of whole undigested seeds in droppings |
| B Vitamin [thiamin (B1), niacin, | nervous system transmission(Thiamin) | deficiency causes feather picking restlessness, seizures, and shrieking. (thiamin) |
| riboflavin (B2) | enzyme formation | Dry and rough skin poor growth |
| niacin, | formation of tissue and energy production | poor growth |
| pyridoxine (B6), | Formation of antibodies | immune dysfunction |
Minerals
Like vitamins minerals are very crucial in the body of budgies. They work hard with vitamins. For instance, vitamin D is required in the absorption of calcium.
Budgies have different mineral requirements throughout their lifecycle. For instance, budgie chicks, laying budgies and injured budgies require more minerals especially calcium and phosphorous as compared to healthy budgies.
Calcium
Calcium is very important in the growth and development of young and juvenile budgies.
Another category of budgies that needs calcium in their diet is laying budgies and injured budgies.
Calcium is the main mineral used for the making of bone and for reproduction.
Lack of enough calcium in the diet of your budgie can result in weak bones, and poor absorption of some other minerals like manganese that also takes part in the formation of bones and eggs formation.
Calcium is also important in the process of neurotransmission which means that lack of calcium can affect the mood of your pet bird.
Calcium is also tied to phosphorous, when phosphorous is high in the feeds or body of the bird it impedes the absorption of calcium by binding to it forming calcium phosphates.
Lack of enough calcium will lead to weak bones and poor reproduction. Another important point to note is that calcium absorption is closely linked to vitamin D. Lack of enough vitamin D will lead to poor absorption of calcium.
Ensuring that your budgie gets enough sunlight will help its body to process the vitamin D that it needs. On the other hand, you can buy vitamin D supplements and dust it into the veggies that you feed your pet bird.
Seeds are nutritionally poor, and a budgie fed on a seeds diet entirely will suffer from nutrient deficiencies in the long run.
However, as we mentioned above, commercially made budgie pellets are formulated with all nutrients needed by the body of a budgie.
How to feed celery to Budgies
- The first step is to make sure you clean celery thoroughly
- Some budgies do not like to eat the celery leaves but enjoy eating the stalk
- You can either cut it into small pieces easily palatable by your bird
- Mix it with other more nutritious veggies or fruits
- At the end of the day make sure you remove any uneaten food in the cage
Conclusion
Most veterinarians recommend that 20-25% of a budgie daily diet should be composed of veggies, fruits, and greens. When feeding greens, you should consider dark green veggies and greens. While celery is ok to feed to your budgie, it has poor nutrition content that will not benefit your budgie. Therefore, only feed celery occasionally and not daily.
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94% of pet owners say their animal pal makes them smile more than once a day. In 2007, I realized that I was made for saving Animals. My father is a Vet, and I think every pet deserves one. I started this blog, “InPetCare”, in 2019 with my father to enlighten a wider audience.