Nutritional review of the diet fed to St Lucia amazons Amazona versicolor at Jersey Zoo

The St Lucia amazon, Amazona versicolor, has been kept at Jersey Zoo, headq uarters of the Durrell Wildlife Conservation Trust, for 24 years. In the in itial stages of the breeding programme, problems were encountered with the health of the birds and therefore reproductive output was compromised. High mortality in both wild-caught adults and captive-born youngsters, from nut rition related diseases, prompted an investigation of the diet fed to the p arrots held at the Trust. Preliminary feeding trials established the nutrit ional content of the diet offered, and highlighted areas where improvement was needed. Modifications were implemented, thus forming a diet which was b elieved to be more suited to the nutritional requirements of the birds. In the years following the diet modifications there was a significant improvem ent in the overall health of the parrots and a burst of reproductive activi ty. However, poor fertility has blighted the breeding programme, and with t he death of a mature, wild-caught breeding male in 2000 attributed to visce ral gout (the bird was also obese), the diet of A. versicolor has once agai n come under scrutiny. The current diet offered and consumed was examined b y weighing food items provided and left over and analysed using nutritional analysis software (Zootrition, Wildlife Conservation Society, 1999) and wa s compared to the requirements for a psittacine diet set out by Baer and Ul lrey (1986) to assess the quality. To establish how much "drift" had occurr ed in the diet offered since the original modifications in 1992, comparison was also made between the current diet and the diet listed for the St Luci a amazon in the Dietary Manual of the Jersey Wildlife Preservation Trust (1 995). The results suggested that crude protein levels were high, vitamin E and manganese were low, and that dietary calcium was deficient, a problem i ntensified by the high levels of phosphorus. Fat levels were slightly high and should also be monitored. Further investigation is needed to establish the most effective way of adjusting the diet. The comparison between the cu rrent diet and the diet in use in 1995 revealed that some changes have occu rred in the amount offered of certain food items. In the process of re-bala ncing the diet, these changes will be taken into consideration to see if th ey can account for some of the nutritional imbalance in the current diet.