on the Feeding of Lories.



85



fairly good, but now and then I would see a bird blinking its

eyes and looking as though it had a sore head, symptoms that

more often than not were quickly relieved by a few drops of

magnesia, but then there were the few cases where relief did not

come but death did, and that swiftly.


I was fortunate enough to interest my medical adviser in

my birds, and on pointing out to him my difficulty as a non-

scientific man in finding out the real cause of illness, he kindly

offered his assistance and advice. We found in the case of a

Violet-necked Lory that died that the stomach was full of milk

curd and very acid ; this seemed to confirm what I had long

supposed to be the case, that indigestion was the cause of most

of the deaths among the Lories.


The next step was to examine carefully the excreta of all

the birds, and the same conditions prevailed in a greater or less

degree in every aviary, viz., the contents of the bowels was

alkali and contained some specks of undigested milk curd which

was very acid. It will be easily seen that a very slight derange¬

ment would cause the stomach to become dangerously acid and

so cause illness or death.


The next move was to find some food that would not turn

acid on the stomach, and at the first trial we hit on what looks

like the right thing, viz. : one of the predigested foods, in this

case Mellins food for infants is used. My doctor instructed my

aviary attendant to give some of the Lories their evening and

morning meal of milk, with Mellins’ in place of biscuit. He

then made a careful examination of the excreta and the result of

the analysis proved that the digestion was quite normal and that

all bad symptoms had disappeared. A little further trial showed

the amount of the patent food necessary with the boiled milk,

and the result is, that though the bottle of liquid magnesia is

still 011 its shelf it is very rarely if ever used, and the birds all

look in the very best of health with none of the puffiness so often

seen after feeding.


One fruit we found it advisable to discard from the Lories

aviaries, and that was oranges; bananas we use sparingly, but

grapes and soaked sultanas ad lib. Canary seed is not withheld

from those that care for it.



