What do pet Collared aracari drink?

Earl Grey. Room temperature. For one month.

Fresh water. Room temperature. For the next.

This is another convention of Riverbanks Zoo I encourage you to adopt.

Aracari require water for drinking and for bathing. So, your bird should have a quart bowl filled fresh daily with either water or weak tea.

Why the weak tea? The idea is, first, that a weak tea resembles better the tannic waters prevalent in rain forests, better than, say … Aquafina, Dasani, Evian, or Zephyrhills. The second idea here is that the tannins in tea, like those in the waters of the rainforest, bind with and eliminate dietary iron. That’s good. Iron is toxic to toucans; it destroys their liver.

Why then any fresh water? Por las dudas! Just to be safe! Tannins not only bind with iron toxic to toucans, but also with other nutrients essential to toucans. So, theoretically, alternating fresh and tannic waters should provide your bird the nutrients it needs, and eliminate those it doesn’t.

David Foley • 407 721-6132 •