# Very frequent moulting -- nutritional deficiency?



## budgielyfe (Dec 25, 2018)

My two budgies are moulting (a pretty heavy one) for the second time this year. They always seem to moult twice in a year, and sometimes even three times. Their moults tend to be heavy, with Benjamin usually getting a small bald spot on his forehead and Kiwi looking a little bare right above the cere. It always fills back in again after a few weeks, but I'm worried about the frequency of these moults. I thought it was supposed to be once per year.

Could this be related to a nutritional deficiency? They are very picky eaters. They rarely will touch anything other than their usual seed/fruit/veggie mix. It's Living World Premium budgie mix. I occasionally give them some spray millet, which they also go wild for. That's about it. They refuse to touch anything else. I've tried giving them many other things. Broccoli, various fruits, they will have none of it. It usually ends with Kiwi tossing it off the cage and staring at me.

I often see Ben munching on the papaya pieces on the mix, but Kiwi typically just tosses out stuff like that and eats only the seeds.

Any advice here? Does this even sound like a nutritional problem? If I can't get them to eat better things, is there are least a supplement that I can spray into their mix to fortify it with extra vitamins that they might need?


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## Cody (Sep 5, 2013)

Molting is generally a seasonal hormonal event and it can be more than once a year. Growing new feathers takes a lot of energy and nutrition and an all seed diet most likely leaves them deficient in some vitamins and minerals. Even if the seed states it has added vitamins and minerals that additive is on the outside of the seed and since budgies remove the seed hull before eating it is questionable as to how much of the added items are actually getting consumed. There are many vitamin supplements that you could use such as this one NEKTON-Biotin | Vitamin compound for feather formation for all birds - NEKTON but the same thing applies as to how much the bird will actually ingest. If sprinkled on seed much will fall to the bottom of the seed cup. It can also be put in the water but if you do that I would change the water twice a day as anytime you put vitamins in the water it becomes more prone to bacterial development as you don't want them drinking bacterial laden water. Have you tried a commercially prepared egg food for birds, Protein Egg Food — Higgins Premium Pet Foods, that would give them additional protein.


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## budgielyfe (Dec 25, 2018)

Cody said:


> Molting is generally a seasonal hormonal event and it can be more than once a year. Growing new feathers takes a lot of energy and nutrition and an all seed diet most likely leaves them deficient in some vitamins and minerals. Even if the seed states it has added vitamins and minerals that additive is on the outside of the seed and since budgies remove the seed hull before eating it is questionable as to how much of the added items are actually getting consumed. There are many vitamin supplements that you could use such as this one NEKTON-Biotin | Vitamin compound for feather formation for all birds - NEKTON but the same thing applies as to how much the bird will actually ingest. If sprinkled on seed much will fall to the bottom of the seed cup. It can also be put in the water but if you do that I would change the water twice a day as anytime you put vitamins in the water it becomes more prone to bacterial development as you don't want them drinking bacterial laden water. Have you tried a commercially prepared egg food for birds, Protein Egg Food — Higgins Premium Pet Foods, that would give them additional protein.


Thanks, Cody. That puts me at ease a little bit with the frequency. Their food mix does indeed have egg granules (Tropican) mixed in, but yeah I don't know how much actually gets ingested by the birds.

And thanks for the links. I wonder if they'll eat that egg food. I may give that a shot. Whether it has anything to do with the moulting or not, I feel like they're probably not getting enough nutrients anyway. I want my little buddies to live as long as possible!


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## Cody (Sep 5, 2013)

Give veggies a try again, sometimes it can make a difference in the way you are offering them. Every day I chop up greens, usually kale or swiss chard and romaine lettuce and add finely grated carrots to that, then I will sometimes add cooked quinoa, which looks like millet mixed in with the greens. If I place a whole leaf of a wet green on top of the cage some of my birds will roll in it trying to take a bath.  You can stay away from the fruit as it contains too much sugar, once in a while is ok if they will eat it.


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