Veggies and fruits-- help!

[pionus]

That's great, and that fruit/veggie puree thing in pasta noodles is genius!

[Pajarita]

Yes, presentation is very important. I also have a grey that would only eat grated raw carrots but she will gladly eat diced and cooked so you need to keep on trying different ways: raw or cooked, diced/julienne/grated/chunks, etc. Sometimes they like them better on a skewer, sometimes stuck between the bars, sometimes in a bowl, etc. The other very important thing is timing. Birds are hungriest early in the morning because dinner should be a single portion big just big enough to fill the crop and nothing else so the cage is empty of food when they wake up (they should never be free-fed pellets, seeds, gloop or whatever the 'grain' staple is -it's unhealthy for them) so, if you wait about one hour after daybreak, and eat with the bird, she will be more willing to try new things (there is no better sauce than hunger -LOL)

It's very easy for me because with the exception of two, all my birds are in the birdroom and, as they don 't live in cages, they share communal dishes of food (I use white paper plates for the food which are put down on their platforms -metal grids hanging from the ceiling with branches to be used as perches) and, as they see all the 'older' ones (not necessarily older in age but birds that have been with me longer) eating whatever it is that I am serving, the new ones will try it but I also have a phrase that I use everyday with them while I eat breakfast with them (their food, not human breakfast) and they soon recognize it as a signal that that strange thing is food and that is good to eat.

Birds are creatures of habit but they also have their likes and dislikes in terms of raw produce so although it would be easier to give in and just give them what they like, the larger the variety of food they eat, the healthier they will be.

[bluefeather98]

btw do any of you guys know if perilla leaves are safe for parrots to eat?

[Pajarita]

I don't really know... they are rich in calcium and the Eastern cuisine uses them as flavoring, I think, but I don't know about eating the fresh leaves by themselves.