input asap please

[Wolf]

As long as they can all get around it to eat and are getting along then you got it and just ignore my suggestion. Thanks for the information.

[Pajarita]

Just out of curiosity, why white? I bought two totally black plates that I use for feeding my budgies and they have no issues with it. I went with the black because where I live there is no light colored soil it is either red or blackish and I don't know what color the soil near the river banks in Australia are. I was trying to get as close to that as I could.

Well, it's because white means no artificial colorants (my birds often chew the edges of the paper plates).

[Wolf]

Ok, thanks for that. The paper plates that I have are all white, but I don't use them often and my black plates are all porcelain, and I don't think that the budgies can chip them or otherwise damage them so they should be safe.

[Pajarita]

I don't normally use any ceramics or porcelain because the big birds could chip them but the budgies should be fine with it. But, in reality, the main reason I use paper plates for everybirdy is that I don't have to wash them

[Kakariki]

Thank yyou everyone for the input.

I will try the paper plate idea, I like the 'no washing part !

Here is another question about the veg. I recently bought a small bag of ''dried greens' from the pet store. the ingredients were short...kale celery and broccoli. I have been sprinkling a bit on the budgies food. Doug and I used to do camping trips in crown land to the north....not campsites, but wilderness areas, therefore no hydro, running water etc...and I used to dehydrate our meals for this. I could dehydrate my own greens for them, I grew Russian kale this year and it is still getting new shoots. also wondered about making a vegetable broth and cooking the grains in that....?

[liz]

You can order dried fruit and veg from Walmart for home delivery.

I like the idea of using veg broth. You can never get too many veg in them. I wonder if the broth would hold the nutrition of the veg.

[Kakariki]

I know from the Canada food guide that the veg broth holds nutrition for people, with or without the pulp. I would assume it would for parraots as well, but I have come to realize that my assumptions are not always correct. Hence I ask here for input and points of view. I have been making my own chicken and beef broth for years from bones. The old chicken broth remedy for a variety of maladies is a good one, proven time and again for my family. My daughter will call e when she feels ill for chicken broth or for honey lemon tea for her throat or fennel tea for her tummy or chamomile if she cannot sleep. Chamomile does not work for me, I wish it would
I guess it is ike anything else, all individual, some things work for one and not another.

[Wolf]

As far I am aware of any broth that you can make will have much of the nutritional values of whatever you make it from, regardless of whom you intend to feed it to.
While I understand the allure of dehydrated foods for us as humans, I get worried when people talk dehydrated foods for their parrots.
Why?
Let me start out with, parrots do not eat dry foods in the wild, they usually eat things that are around 75% water. Some of our parrots come from arid and semi arid locations and have evolved water conserving features (?) and do not actually consume very much water, indeed, most of our parrots, even the ones living in the rain forest get the largest amount of their water intake from their food and only drink in the morning and evenings. In the wild, even the ones that eat more seeds than the others do not eat dry seeds, they eat the young immature seeds while they are still green and full of moisture. A parrot that eats a lot of dry foods is often in a state of mild dehydration due to their tendency to only drink small amounts of water in the mornings and evenings. Still in order to digest their food they must have moisture and the only source if for it to be pulled from the surrounding tissues or the bird can't properly digest the food. This is the basis of my concern with dehydrated foods for our birds.

[liz]

I was going to try it in their gloop.

[Wolf]

The issue with dehydrated food is not in having it, it is using it without rehydrating it before the bird eats it. If it is a small enough of an amount then the gloop will probably have enough moisture in it to rehydrate it or if the dehydrated food is added while you are cooking the gloop it will rehydrate just fine.