parrot_chow (original) (raw)

23 September 2012 @ 10:55 pm

Hey,

My CAG eats a pellet/seed & fresh food diet -- but the fresh food is mainly meat protein.

I'd like to transition him to mash but I'm worried he won't eat it bc he's never been a fan of veggies.

Any recommendations? Anyone experience this in the past?

ah i thought i had saved a good recipe for mash, but i can't seem to find the bookmark.

what are some good dry mash recipes for budgies?

30 December 2008 @ 11:17 am

30 August 2008 @ 11:04 am

Legumes are a delicious, healthy addition to your bird's diet. They are a good source of protein and fiber, and they are low in fat.

What is a legume?
Legumes are a family of foods which include beans, lentils, and peas.

Which legumes should I feed?
When deciding which legumes to prepare for your birds, digestibility is a primary concern. If foods are difficult to digest they can cause an upset tummy, gas, and decreased absorption of nutrients. The easiest ones to digest are mung beans, adzuki beans, garbanzo beans/ chickpeas, lentils, sprouting peas, and split peas. The hardest ones to digest are large beans such as kidney and pinto. I choose to mainly feed the legumes that are easier to digest to my birds. Occasionally if I happen to be making a batch of other legumes for myself, such as kidney beans, I may offer some to by birds as well. However it is not a regular part of their diet. I also choose not to use 15 bean mixes and such. Not only do they contain a large amount of hard to digest legumes, but when including a large variety of legumes all in one meal they can be harder to digest as well. It's better to only feed one or two types of legumes at a time.

Where can I find them?
Look for dried legumes rather then canned. Try to find organic legumes with a smooth, rather then wrinkled, appearance. The wrinkled ones are older, and you want yours to be as fresh as possible. Most grocery stores carry dried legumes of some sort. The bulk bins of your natural foods store may have a good variety. Arrowhead Mills and Bob's Red Mill brands have packaged legumes that I've had good luck with. They are widely available at many local grocery stores and of good quality. Sun Organic has a wide variety of healthy and very high quality legumes online. They have the highest quality I've seen, even better then the bulk bins at Whole Foods. They also carry adzuki and mung beans, which can sometimes be difficult to find in local stores. Bob's Red Mill carries a variety of legumes, but they also carry a product called Vegi Soup Mix which is mostly legumes and a good base for fresh food mixes. Keep in mind most of their legumes are not organic, even though they are of good quality.

How do I prepare them?
Begin by washing legumes and discarding any which are discolored or badly formed. Check for debris in the package such as small rocks or twigs and discard them. Put them in a bowl with warm water and let soak overnight (about 8-12 hours... or up to 24). Drain, rinse, then place them in a pot with water and boil for 10 minutes uncovered, then simmer covered for 20 minutes. While cooking you can also add turmeric, garlic, cumin, or fennel to aid digestibility. The more easily digested legumes (mung, adzuki, chickpeas, lentils, and sprouting peas) can also be sprouted instead of, or in addition to, being cooked. The easiest way to do this is with an Easy Sprouter. Just make sure the tails are at least 1/4" long before you serve them. I wouldn't recommend sprouting any of the larger beans such as pinto, kidney, or black beans.

How do I serve them?
They should make up about 15% of your bird's diet, if you're not feeding pellets. The ratio of grains to legumes should be two to one... so if you feed two teaspoons of grains, feed one teaspoon of legumes. What this translates to is less then 1/2 tsp for a budgie per day and less then a tablespoon for an eclectus per day. Just to give a general idea of amounts we're talking about with different size birds. There is no need for a big bowl full of legumes.

If your bird hasn't discovered the deliciousness of legumes, try putting them through a food processor before adding them to a fresh food mix. Or just process a tiny bit with a variety of foods you know your bird already likes, then gradually increase the amount of legumes.

One of the best things about feeding legumes is that we can join in the fun as well! How about making up a batch of hummus when cooking chickpeas for your birds? Adzuki beans are great with winter squash, so try a new recipe. Or sprout some mung beans to go with salad, stir fry, or anything else you can imagine. It's healthy, delicious fun for you and the birds.

I made a big batch of "glop" last night. I used sprouted Ezekiel bread, winter squash baby food, nonfat plain yogurt, flax seed meal, broccoli, spinach, and carrot (all organic). I froze it in an ice cube tray, but now my problem is, I can't for the life of me get the cubes out!! Does anyone have tricks for this?

I'm going grocery shopping later today for some veggies to make glop for my lovies. Up until now, they've really only had cooked grain mixes, fresh raw greens since it's the only fresh food they'll readily eat, and dried fruits/veggies aside their everyday dry meals (I'm waiting on organic seeds to arrive to sprout). I was hoping to include eggplant and yam, but these have never been served to them before and I am by absolutely no means a gourmet. I've also never eaten eggplant or yam myself - the closest I've come is growing them on Harvest Moon, really.

Should I serve/mix them raw, or would there be a preferred method that would milk the most nutrients from them? I also know that fruits are particularly high in sugar. If I were to create a fruity glop mix (I'm thinking bananas, strawberries, blueberries, apples, oranges, maybe mangoes), how often would you recommend serving it?

Thanks. :)

An update on the BirdElicious species-specific caique food, since some of you were curious:

I did taste a chunk of their food, and it was really tasty. Easily chewable, not hard, and just a little bit sweet.

My birds prefer this food over every other base diet I've tried with them, including Harrison's pellets (which were the previous favorite). They've chowed through five bags of it now, and it still gets two very big zygodactyl thumbs up. :)

I still feed them a fresh-food mix as their primary diet, but this stuff is great when I'm in a hurry, when I've forgotten to thaw out their regular food, for traveling, or just for a treat. It's also really nice to have a dry food option with which to fill foraging toys, since fresh food doesn't really work well in most foragers.

I generally feed my two caiques a homemade, fresh-food diet, but I like to keep a couple varieties of dry/pelleted food around for foraging, for bird sitters, and to keep them used to a varied diet.

I recently tried BirdElicious' species specific caique food (both regular and "teenager transitional"), and my birds both LOVE it. It's the closest thing I've ever seen to my homemade stuff. All of the ingredients are recognizable human foods (except for the mealworms, but they're technically human-grade!).

Best of all, it's not actually a pelleted food! The majority of it is dried chunks of green stuff, which is clearly all of the greens that go into the food. But there are also dried bits of orange veggies, coconut shavings, pine nuts, and other whole foods mixed in. I can actually identify many of the ingredients just by looking at the food.

When I say my caiques love this food, I mean that when they see me approaching their cage with a foraging toy full of the stuff they will stop what they're doing and RUN over to where I'm hanging it up, even if they're outside their cage. They purr nonstop while pulling every chunk of the stuff out of the foraging toy. They'll crawl around the bottom of the cage eating the dropped bits later, too.

This food gets two big thumbs up in my household!

16 January 2008 @ 01:37 pm

Hello all!

I posted a little while ago about doing a food conversion with my Goffins. It's been a bit of a chore trying to find places that sell what I'm looking for (Harrison's and Roudybush), as the store I was hoping would have them (Paradise Perch) just opened and they don't have them in yet (they probably will within a couple months, but seeing as my little bird's current food has pieces of rusted metal in it, I want to start the switch asap!). Anyway, I finally found a vet that carries Harrison's and while it's a bit of a drive, I'm definately getting some for her. Now, I was just wondering, which would be better to start her on - the High Potency formula (she does feather pick) or the Adult Lifetime? And which one is better for the long run?

Thank you in advance! [x-posted]

06 January 2008 @ 10:37 am