Popsickles & raw food cakes!

[Viatrixa]

So, just as the title implies! Can you safely give pet birds SELF MADE popsickles out of pure, natural fruit? I don't mean the industrial sugary goop you can get from shops.

What I'm wondering is if you can make a sort of a fruit slurry out of say, berries, carrots, apples and the like, pour it into a popsickle mold and put a pure, wooden stick in it? I did some research and found this little article on it: https://jamiesparrothelp.wordpress.com/ ... popsicles/

So I was wondering if people have any experiences on this? I know that at times it may just depend all together on the bird's individual tastes and likes. Another thing I'm wondering about is self made almond milk - basically just almonds and some water in a blender. I've been wondering if this too, would be safe for a bird because it lacks lactose and cholesterol, but would the calcium it contains be unhealthy for the birds?

A third point of interest would be raw food cakes. There's actually a really nice raw food bar right near our corner, and they make their products by hand in the actual place. The base was made out of mushed up, compacted dates (biologically grown) and the filling in the cake was made out of nothing but mashed up berries: blueberry, raspberry, and red currants if I recall correctly. There was also just the tiniest hint of palm oil in it; however the amount was literally just droplets. No sugar, salt, preserving stuffs, egg, or even flour went into it. It tasted damn delicious at least to my palate! Of course I haven't given any to my little ringneck until I get an answer about weather it's safe or not.

I'm actually trying to very heavily cut down on extra & non natural sugars (unless it's say, a pure fruit juice with nothing extra added to it). So I'm wondering if I can safely share some of these slightly more healthier human treats with my little feather butt? The cake didn't actually taste too sweet at all and it was quite a refreshing treat for me.

Essentially I'm wondering what healthy human treats I could share with my bird. I love making salads that we both can eat, and sometimes I'll sprinkle his salad just with the tiniest bit of millets. ( I was an idiot and had a tiny taste of millet myself, taste was okay but the texture was so dry! ) ... and yes, I'm the kind of idiot that likes to have just the tiniest nibble of what I feed to my parrots. XD

I also did read some differing opinions on mealworms; and while they don't contain the same amounts of the bad stuff as red / white meats they have a tendency to make the birds hormonal so I'm assuming I should keep any "meats" away from the birds. I was told right here on this forum that birds can't properly process the cholesterol meat gives, so probably best to not give them any at all I assume?

I'm not wondering about what "regular" meals to give to my ringneck; I have his veggies, meals and fruits down :3 !

[flappybird]

You should totally try the foods your feed your birds! I was trying to figure out why Luna won't touch the sprouts that I was so excited to make for her, and I tried them and discovered they were incredibly bitter! Now this may not mean the same for her, but maybe that's why?

No advice on the other foods, since I am still learning myself. But I would expect that raw fruit cakes would be okay as long as there are no excessive amounts of oil or added sugars. Everything in moderation. I've been learning that a tiny, tiny treat goes a long way!

[Wolf]

Pajarita would be more in the know on this than I am but unless it contains things on the toxic list in them they should all be fine. The only thing that you mentioned that to me would be cause for concern would be the almond milk and that is because of the amount of calcium that it may contain. Too much calcium for a bird is as bad or worse than not enough.

[Pajarita]

I have to admit that I, personally, do not really eat that healthy so I don't have any healthy treats to share with my birds but as long as they are not dehydrated, made out of organic items (when necessary), do not have any chemicals added to them and are not high in protein, it should be fine.

But don't use your taste buds to determine if a parrot would like something or not because they appreciate things we might not - like super hot spicy and bitter stuff. Having said that, my birds favorite treat are cookies (they know the word, too!). I get these graham crackers made with sugar cane juice and give them each a small piece and they LOVE them! The large ones also enjoy fresh sugar cane and dried figs.

[flappybird]

Fresh sugar cane is SO GOOD. Plus, the bird gets a chewing workout also? That's a win.

[Harpmaker]

My Corsair loves to eat ice cubes. Just water, but it looks so funny when she holds it in her claw to crunch the last of it. Frozen fruits and veggies should be better!

How is almond milk made with water and almonds nutritionally different than almond pieces, Wolf? More concentration? Or would the bird eat more because of the water? I'd think if you controlled the amount it would be nutritionally the same.

[Wolf]

If you can control the amount of the almonds in the almond milk and then control the amount that the bird receives then I don't see a problem, but for the average homeowner ( so to speak) that is pretty hard to do. Many of our parrots are small enough that more than one almond per day could be too much. It would take a pretty small blender to make almond milk with just one or two almonds, I would think. I think that the risk would be in the bird receiving too much rather than not enough.

[Harpmaker]

That sounds right. So the trick is portion control like anything else. A whole almond milk popsicle is too much, and to get enough to put a stick in you probably need to dilute it with water. Since Corsair enjoys plain water ice cubes that will work for me, but other birds might be pickier.

[liz]

Mine won't touch cold food and if I tell them something is hot they sit there and look at it until it cools down.

[flappybird]

Mine won't touch cold food and if I tell them something is hot they sit there and look at it until it cools down.

That's impressive....