Understanding the nutritional needs of lorikeets
When thinking about a lorikeet’s natural diet, nectar immediately comes to mind for most people. While this food source does make up a considerable portion of a lorikeet diet, these birds are actually omnivores, not nectivores. Rarely considered is the fact that lorikeets have a seasonal preference for insects to supplement protein and amino acids, which are crucial for breeding and raising young.
Key points on a lorikeet’s natural diet:
- Lorikeets are omnivores, with a primarily high calorie nectar preference
- They forage pollen, grubs and other invertebrates to supplement protein
- They occasionally eats seeds and fruits
Some commercial lorikeet diets have proved disastrous for lorikeets in the past, with varying degrees of calamity. Large scale feeding of high calorie bread and honey diets at tourist attractions have led to huge death trolls in native colonies. While on a less obvious, but none the less tragic scale, poor quality high calorie commercial lorikeet diets have caused malnutrition, disease and death in companion pet lorikeets.
This is why, at Vetafarm, our lorikeet diets are designed with their natural behaviours and nutritional requirements at the core. We replicate their natural diets as closely as possible to ensure that captive lorikeets are thriving as if they were in the wild.
We manufacture four different diets for lorikeets to ensure that there are options for different kinds of birds and living situations – whether it be a wet/dry mix or a pellet. The core nutrition remains the same, but each has it’s own differing benefit to suit your bird’s lifestyle.