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|   Softbill DietsToucans are softbills much like mynahs and the like not because their bills are soft by any means, but because they exist on a diet that does not include hard-to-digest food items like seeds and nuts. The toucan in its native habitat would typically exist on fruits and some smaller organisms like rodents, insects, or lizards.
In captivity, however, their diet can be made much simpler for you and the bird as well as more nutritional than even a varied wild diet as most zoological parks can attest. Fruit is, of course, what at least 50% of the diet must consist of. I give mine papayas, seedless grapes, pears, apples, carrots, etc. Stay away from citrus fruit and green vegetables because of their high iron content which I'll come back to in a moment. Also, limit the banana intake because it's rough on the digestive system.
The purpose of feeding a low-iron diet is because softbills in general are prone to iron storage disease which is clinically known as hemochromatosis. Softbills have trouble synthesizing this metal and therefore, accumulate it in the liver, impairing its filtering function.
Basically, toucans are as easy to feed as any other bird, they just eat a different diet than hookbills!
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