by Pajarita » Thu May 03, 2018 10:56 am
Parrots, as all prey animals, are crepuscular feeders. This means that their brains are hardwired to eat and drink at dawn and dusk [because ten pct of the predators vision is lost during these times so it's safer for them to go to ground during these times] so that's when I feed mine: twice a day, breakfast a bit after dawn [to get them good and hungry] and dinner when the sun is setting but with enough time leftover for them to 'wind down' and get to their roosting perch with enough light for them to see. I always give them plenty of gloop and produce so there is always quite a bit of leftover [which, in my case, doesn't go to waste because I collect it and feed it to the street pigeons]. I'll tell you what my routine is to give you an example. At this time of the year [it changes because their schedule -and, therefore, also my own- changes with the seasons], I get up at 5:15 to 5:30 am and I pull up the blinds, uncover their cages [more on covering the cage below] and open the doors so they can come out at around 5:30 to 5:45 am [it also depends on how bright or how grey the day is]. I give them their produce while I clean their cages at around 6:15 to 6:30 am and their gloop at around 7 or 7:30 and I turn on the overhead full spectrum lights a bit later. I put out plenty of gloop and large portions of produce for them because it doesn't matter how much they eat of these things, they still do not get fat. When you feed pellets, they tend to overeat because they only feel full when their crops are [think of sawdust, if it's dried and compressed, you end up with a small pellet, but take that same pellet and put it in water and it will grow to four or five times its size, right? Well, it's the same thing with parrot pellets. Parrots have no saliva in their beaks and a very limited amount of it goes into their crop so the pellets actually remain dry [and 'shrunken'] until they get to their proventriculus [their first 'stomach'] so they end up eating more pellets than they actually need. But gloop is made out of cooked whole grains [think how much rice 'grows' when you cook it] and chopped frozen veggies so it's more water than anything else as well as very high in fibre - the two things that make you feel 'full' with very little calories. Liz is correct, there are several recipes of gloop but, as a general description, it's a dish made out of cooked whole grains, pulses and chopped frozen veggies [because frozen is more nutritious than fresh]. I use kamut, spelt, hulled -not pearled- barley, oat groats, some type of wheat [could be hard red winter, could be soft white spring, could be farro], quinoa or millet [this depends on the season because quinoa is higher in protein than millet], red and/or black rice, small white beans [I ONLY use white beans because they are the lowest in the bad lectin that all beans have] and lentils [I use the round, black ones but the regular brown ones are good, too] - these are cooked al dente [so the outside is soft but the inside is still hard and they retain their shape and do not stick to one another] and allow to cool. Once they are cool, I mix the beans [I use a small amount of beans] and the frozen veggies [which I mix still frozen so as to retain the maximum nutrition]. The veggies I always use are: chopped broccoli [I buy it already chopped in bags from the frozen section], corn, peas, carrots, butternut squash [comes already cubed], white hominy [I get cans of this and rinse them very thoroughly under running water] and sweet potato chunks [I either bake them in the winter or nuke them in the potato express bag in the summer] but I, sometimes, add other stuff... it could be beets, it could be chopped green beans but, usually, it's artichoke hearts [which you can also get frozen, add whole and, once they thaw, you can chop up right before you serve] because they are so good for their livers [always a problem with pet parrots]. This makes what I call the 'basic' recipe which gets split into daily portions into baggies and frozen. I take out a baggie three days prior and leave it in the fridge to thaw slowly but, if you forget, you can always defrost it in the microwave. Then, first thing in the morning, I take the thawed baggie out of the fridge and leave it outside to get it to room temperature [but, in the winter, I make it a bit warm in the microwave] and I 'doctor' it with different flavors so they don't get bored eating the same identical thing every day. I use spices and other stuff for this - things like raisins, currants, organic and naturally dried apple or pineapple, unsweetened coconut, etc. and cinnamon [but make sure it's the real one, the one from Ceylon and don't use a lot], ginger, oregano, garlic, chili powder, white and black pepper, rosemary, thyme, nutmeg, allspice, jalapenos, habaneros, chile de arbol, etc. I get all my supplies for the gloop from the regular supermarket organic and health food section but I still have to go to Whole Foods for the black lentils and rices.
As to the covering at night, it depends on where his cage is located and where you live. I used to live in Pennsylvania, in a five acre property and the house was surrounded by an old forest so they did not get covered because the only light they got was from the moon and stars and VERY little at that because of the tall trees. And here, I don't do anything for the parrots that live cage-free in the parrot room or the canaries, finches, etc that live in the passerine room because both these rooms are in the back of the house and get no light from street lamps but I do cover the cages that are in the living and dining room because there is always light from the street that filters in -even with the blinds down. I have a son coming over for a visit with his family in September but, after that, my husband promised me the two rooms in the finished attic for my birds so I will not need to cover them as they will all be cage-free and get their light from skylights - but we will see if I don't have to install some sort of blind on them, too...
Now, one more thing that I remembered last night I had not covered: the cheese you give him. I know that you will read many times that people give their parrots things like cheese, eggs and yogurt - sheesh, even avian vets tell their clients it's OK to feed them these things but that's because avian vets don't really study parrot natural diets. The thing is that, contrary to popular belief, parrots are not omnivorous. With the exception of two or possibly three [more study is required] species of parrots, they are all classified as herbivores by ornithologists. Now, don't misunderstand me, a parrot is not going to drop dead if you give him a piece of cheese or even a piece of meat but nature does not give a body what it doesn't need so herbivores don't have the right enzymes to digest animal protein -which is different from plant protein- but, most importantly, they do not have a digestive mechanism that gets rid of bad cholesterol because they never consume anything in the wild that has it. People justify feeding them meat and such saying that they eat insects in the wild, and it is true that they do -although not as many as people would like to believe- but insect protein has virtually no fat and no bad cholesterol! Cheese also has too much salt for them so, please, do discontinue the cheese breakfast, it's not doing him any favors even though I am SURE he loves it [cheese has umami flavor, a marker protein, and parrots LOVE protein and salt because, as neither is normally found in abundance in the wild but both are necessary for life, nature gave them a craving for them -same as we, humans, crave salt and fat].
Let me know if I answer your questions or if you have any other.