# Soy Milk



## Scribbles (Jun 28, 2012)

Is there any reason a cockatiel can't have a small amount of soy milk?


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## MeanneyFids (Aug 24, 2010)

i am not sure, i think ive read somewhere its not safe for birds, but dont quote me on it.


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## Mentha (Jul 11, 2010)

Most soy is GMO, it's been known to cause hyperactivity in children and cancer in rodents. I'm pretty sure if you can find some that is not GMO it would be safe, but there is no guarantee that you would.


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## Scribbles (Jun 28, 2012)

GMO products in Australia aren't as available as other parts of the world. We use a non-GMO soy milk from Vitasoy. I just wanted to put a tiny bit (maybe a tablespoon) on some wholegrain cereal that's all. I might be better off using just warm water do you think?


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## roxy culver (May 27, 2010)

Or regular milk...a small amount of regular milk wont be harmful to a tiel. Maybe cause a funky dropping or two but its OK to give occasionally.


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## Mentha (Jul 11, 2010)

It should be safe, but make sure the cereal is not iron fortified.


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## hanna (Apr 14, 2012)

Tiels cannot digest milk, gives them a runny poooo and rumbling tummy.... Has to do with the natural bacteria etc in their crop/tummy
But they can digest cheese. Joe goes nuts over cheese. I only give the hard yellow ones, like tasty cheese or swiss or gruyere, nothing like camembert or blue cheese though.

Sharon, if you want to feed cereals it is better to give them raw/dry or a little bit of water, and as already mentioned make sure about the iron... not too much.
Tiels love cheerios, but I only give Joe 1-2 max over the weekend as a treat... because of the iron.
I try to get him to more and more veggies: carrot, potatoes, sweet potatoe, pumpkin, broccoli, cauliflower.... not that much peas as it draws calcium out of their bones. But now and then a pea is fine. I also want to try and grow my own seeds as a grass and give Joe the fresh greenish seeds to eat as they are full with vitamins.

See what other members have to say, always interesting to read different views and opinions.


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## MeanneyFids (Aug 24, 2010)

soy milk isnt "milk" so it does not have lactose in it that birds cant have... i just am not sure about the soy. if others say its safe, i trust their opinions


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## Cryren8972 (Oct 3, 2007)

Birds don't need milk in their cereal. . I'm a stickler about trying to research what they eat in the wild. I can't come close to that at home, but I try not to add really out of character items. Cockatiels are mostly seed eaters in the wild, which is why they don't do well on an all pellet diet. However...the seed they eat are germinated or on the plant, not the hard dry stuff we feed. That's why I feed sprouts at least twice a week. A good seed mix, a small bowl of pellets on the side, and sprouts are the staples. Once a week I add egg, they get greens on a regular basis, and always cuttlebone. The cuttlebone and kale are their main sources of calcium. I also make "treats" of rice and bean mixes with veggies thrown in. Cereals are OK on occasion, or as special treats, but it's not something that should be relied upon regularly.


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## MeanneyFids (Aug 24, 2010)

cyren i would not feed the beans or egg, both are high in protein, i mean with the pellets added into the diet. too high of protein in the diet can lead to kidney problems in the long run, other than that, your diet is excellent!


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## Cryren8972 (Oct 3, 2007)

I give them beans maybe once every two weeks. They are in an outdoor aviary and actually require a little more protein than a caged bird. The pellets are always available, but nibbled on. The whole flock (eleven birds) doesn't go through a cup of pellets in a week. Egg is needed for the breeding pairs and molting birds. They get one egg for the entire flock. I have researched this to death. =)

I probably should have mentioned that the diet I give them is for more active outdoor birds. It DOES make a difference.


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## Cryren8972 (Oct 3, 2007)

Interesting to note...I just looked, and the pellets I feed, Roudybush, actually contains less protein than the seed mix, Higgins Supreme.


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## MeanneyFids (Aug 24, 2010)

http://talkcockatiels.com/showthread.php?t=29071&highlight=eggs+pellets&page=2

good read, here.

so if you are feeding all these protein sources, its adding up...


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## Cryren8972 (Oct 3, 2007)

Yes, I've read all of that. If you'd read what I wrote, you'll see that the beans are an occasional treat, and one egg once a week fed to eleven breeding birds. I promise you that I'm not overloading them on protein. As also mentioned, the pellets are lower in protein than the seed mix I offer.


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## MeanneyFids (Aug 24, 2010)

still, everything adds up, you dont want too high of protein. i would remove one of those items, because its still all too much together. you've already proven whether its the seeds or pellets that the diet is too high in protein. a little extra is fine, but i worry you are over doing it.


anyways time this thread got back on topic, that was my fault.


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## tielfan (Aug 31, 2008)

Soy contains phytoestrogens, and the alt-med community has concerns about the hormonal effects that this has on birds (and humans too). If you google for soy and parrots you'll find scary stories about soy leading to premature death. However the accuracy of this is questionable; the alt-med community tends to go off half-cocked about nutrition and there's a lot of bad info on the net. Soy is a component of most pellets and it's generally accepted that pellets improve the health of birds.

Bottom line: we don't know whether it's safe or not. I would err on the side of caution and not offer it, particularly if your bird is already eating pellets that contain soy.


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## enigma731 (Aug 12, 2011)

If you really want a milk substitute, what about a little unflavored almond milk? It's delicious and I believe bird-safe, although you'll want to be careful it doesn't have too many added vitamins.


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## Mentha (Jul 11, 2010)

tielfan said:


> Soy contains phytoestrogens,


wow. I thought it was because most of it was GMO. Then why give it to infants as formula? Isn't that asking for trouble in the long run?

This is what the wiki says for phytoestrogens and avian species: The consumption of plants with unusual content of phytoestrogens under drought conditions, has been shown to decrease fertility in quail.[ _ Leopold AS, Erwin M, Oh J, Browning B (January 1976). "Phytoestrogens: adverse effects on reproduction in California quail". Science 191 (4222): 98–100. DOI:10.1126/science.1246602. PMID 1246602. Retrieved 2008-12-20._ ] 


Parrot food as available in nature has shown only weak estrogenic activity. Studies have been conducted on screening methods for environmental estrogens present in manufactured supplementary food, with the purpose to enable reproduction of endangered species. _Fidler AE, Zwart S, Pharis RP, Weston RJ, Lawrence SB, Jansen P, Elliott G, Merton DV (2000). "Screening the foods of an endangered parrot, the kakapo (Strigops habroptilus), for oestrogenic activity using a recombinant yeast bioassay". Reprod. Fertil. Dev. 12 (3-4): 191–199. DOI:10.1071/RD00041. PMID 11302429._


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## Cryren8972 (Oct 3, 2007)

DallyTsuka said:


> still, everything adds up, you dont want too high of protein. i would remove one of those items, because its still all too much together. you've already proven whether its the seeds or pellets that the diet is too high in protein. a little extra is fine, but i worry you are over doing it.
> 
> 
> anyways time this thread got back on topic, that was my fault.


http://jn.nutrition.org/content/131/7/2014.full

This shows that cockatiels seem to do better on a diet right at 11%-20% protein. I'm feeding well under 20%. But thank you for looking out for our birds.


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## roxy culver (May 27, 2010)

> This shows that cockatiels seem to do better on a diet right at 11%-20% protein. I'm feeding well under 20%. But thank you for looking out for our birds.


I don't see the amount of protein you're offering as being too high, my birds (17 in all) don't go through a bowl of pellets in a week either. 

As to the milk issue, I was told by a breeder to give my birds (when breeding) a slice of wheat bread soaked in milk and it should be fine. Tiels are lactose intolerant but that doesn't mean they can't have a little bit. And cheese is just as bad as milk, but my hens still go bonkers for it. Its just like anything else we give them, in moderation, or in this case, as an occasional treat.


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## Mentha (Jul 11, 2010)

In reply to beans. Most of the breeders I know make their own cook & serve mixes. They feed a combo of beans, pasta & rice up to three times a week. My birds go nuts over cooked pintos, but they don't get them very often.


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## MeanneyFids (Aug 24, 2010)

Cryren8972 said:


> http://jn.nutrition.org/content/131/7/2014.full
> 
> This shows that cockatiels seem to do better on a diet right at 11%-20% protein. I'm feeding well under 20%. But thank you for looking out for our birds.


alright, thank you for enlightening me on this, its been common knowledge on here that eggs+pellets=not good, its good to see exact numbers here to let us know what is too high and what is not. thanks for clearing that up, and sorry if i had annoyed you in any way, i was just concerned it might have been too much, as ive always been told 20% of the diet should be pellets, which with veggies and seed, seems to be a small amount in comparison. so thanks for clearing it up. i was wrong :blush:


now i want to check my protein content of my pellets, since my guys down their pellets lol they finish 4 tablespoons in 1 week (2 tbsp per bird).


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## tielfan (Aug 31, 2008)

> wow. I thought it was because most of it was GMO. Then why give it to infants as formula? Isn't that asking for trouble in the long run?


Keep in mind that the concerns about soy are coming from a subgroup within the alt-med community. There are lots of people in other alt-med subgroups chowing down on soy products as a healthy alternative to meat. There's very little that has actually been established, and any dangers aren't obvious enough to draw serious attention from the scientific community. 

Here's a sampling of the anti-soy stuff that's being written with a specific focus on phytoestrogens, and several of them mention parrots. I haven't bothered to investigate it since it smells like a steaming pile of unsubstantiated claims:

http://panacea-bocaf.org/soyonlineservice.htm
http://www.tldp.com/issue/11_00/soy.htm
http://www.naturopath.org.nz/soya.html
http://www.theparrotsocietyuk.org/k...-and-breeding-parrots/soy-based-food-products


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## MeanneyFids (Aug 24, 2010)

well i checked my pellet ingredient list, seems soybean oil is an ingredient.... does this answer if soy is safe


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## tielfan (Aug 31, 2008)

> does this answer if soy is safe


It doesn't answer anything... lots of stuff that's thought to be safe later turns out to be unsafe. And lots of stuff that makes the fringe groups scream that it's dangerous actually turns out to be safe. 

My personal take on it is that soy should be safe in moderation, because the problems would be very noticeable if it wasn't. Anyone who overconsumes soy is asking for trouble, maybe from the phytoestrogens or maybe from something else entirely. It's not a good idea to consume excessive amounts of ANYTHING.


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## Cryren8972 (Oct 3, 2007)

I guess my take on it is that if it's this controversial, I tend to not feed it to my birds. As for phytoestrogens, they're in all sorts of things. And that has been proven. But that's an entirely different conversation, because I could go on and on about the FDA and GMO foods, etc. Birds don't need soy milk. You can feed them some in small amounts and shouldn't notice any adverse affects. I suppose that's what this thread is getting at in the long run LOL


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## Mentha (Jul 11, 2010)

tielfan said:


> My personal take on it is that soy should be safe in moderation, because the problems would be very noticeable if it wasn't. Anyone who overconsumes soy is asking for trouble, maybe from the phytoestrogens or maybe from something else entirely. It's not a good idea to consume excessive amounts of ANYTHING.


Moderation is always good for anything. It can cause a deficiency in one thing if you favor another and vice versa.


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