Birds' diet

[shiraartain]

Hello everyone! I've been playing around with the birds' diet to try and balance it out (since long-term freezing didn't work out) and right now I have a routine that works for me, but I want to confirm works for the birds.

In a glass-sized container, I mix rolled oats, chia seed, burghul wheat, 8-10 raisins, and 2-3 almonds. I then fill up the glass with water and put it in the fridge, covered with a lid.

In the morning, I drain the water and spoon the servings into the birds' containers. Then I take 1-2 fruits/veggies, slice them up, and add them on top. Serve to the birds.

One container will typically last 2-3 days, refrigerated.

We just bought whole wheat bread, which will be given to them as treats throughout the day or when they come begging for what we're eating.

I buy my seed in bulk from a chain store (I know, but no mom and pop stores nearby). I'm attaching a picture of the seed information, as I went in to buy some today and realized the nutrition info was available.

They also had saffron available in bulk, as well as fennel seed. Anybody have information on them?

[Wolf]

It certainly has a whole lot of added artificial vitamins and minerals, preservatives and not sure of what. But it is hard to find good seed mixes without all of these type of ingredients in them. Luckily, In my opinion, they are pretty much a waste as they are mostly on the part the bird throws away. If you are changing the fruits and vegetables often that you are putting on top then I think that you are doing fine.
I am still learning about all of this diet stuff and don't think of myself as the best to critique all of your birds diet as I still forget some stuff unless I really take my time about it. I do think that if you are wanting better evaluations that you would need to supply a more detailed listing of the fruits and vegetables that you are giving them and probably how often you change from one to the other.

[shiraartain]

Hmmm you're right about them not consuming the negatives for the most part. Honestly, our parrots don't seem to be crazy for seed. They'll come for it when we offer it to them, but when I put in their morning food, I've noticed they've been eating less seed at night ever since I switched from a produce-based diet to a grains-based one. They won't even touch it when they're hungry in the morning, just call for their breakfast.

The fruits/veggies we add vary depending on what's in the house. recently we've had pomegranate and cranberry, shredded carrots, cilantro, frozen veggie mix (I pick out the green beans), pear, bell pepper, spicy peppers (I don't know what they're called). Bananas are the most steady staple, since we buy them on every grocery trip. They're also given dates if I'm running short on fresh fruits/veggies. Broccoli makes sporadic appearances as well and I grab organic dandelion greens when I'm the one doing grocery shopping.

I think it was mentioned in Liz's board that almonds should not be given in the morning. Should those go in their night food/ be cut down on?

I'm running on 4 hours of sleep since I just finished finals, so sorry if I end up correcting myself/adding more later on.

[Wolf]

I usually give Kiki Senegal one almond every night in her seed mix.

[liz]

I give Rambo and Myrtle half an English walnut with breakfast and an unshelled almond in their supper which includes some seeds and an unsalted mini pretzel. The pretzel really has no nutritional value but they always go for that first and it fills their bellies at bedtime. Rambo eats the almond next. Myrtle some times does not eat her almond. The seed I measure out 1 tablespoon each.

The cockatiels get the same breakfast but cut much smaller and do not get nuts. Their evening meal is just seed. I give a third of a cup for them all and they don't eat it all since they picked through their breakfast all day.

[Pajarita]

Hmm, well, if you are feeding soaked chia and oatmeal, you are taking away all the fun of eating grains because the chia seeds are too tiny and the oatmeal is a mush so they have nothing to pick, peel and eat -and, most likely, that's why they don't eat a lot of it. Why don't you try getting some whole grains? They sell them in the supermarkets now, sometimes in the organic section, sometimes in the cereal one and, if you don't find them, ask Customer Service where do they keep the Bob's Red Mill or the Lundberg or Hodgson Mill grain products.

And, if you are going to soak, don't put it in the fridge, keep it outside and add some apple cider vinegar to the warm water (it increases the enzymatic activity).

[liz]

I do use whole grains except for the oatmeal. The chia is also whole.

[Navre]

I bought a thing to sprout seeds, but it seemed to be a lot of work for the relatively minimal interest by the bird.

[Wolf]

Sprouts are like any other food, you generally have to teach them that they are food and that they are good to eat. That can be a pain if you don't really care for them yourself.

[seagoatdeb]

At the point of where it just sprouts seeds, nuts and grains have the most nutrition, you dont need them to have long sprouts. Everytime I use a new sprout for my parrots, I rinse them with hot water and some cinnamon, and they will eat them then very easily, my pois love Ceylon Cinnamon. I dont mind eating sprouted nuts or sprouted grains with them to help them but I dont like sprouted seeds on their own, so what I usually do is make a fresh fruit salad, with a raw coconut, raw cashew cream on top and then sprinkle some of the sprouted seeds on top. The Pois get some pieces of fruit and some sprouted seeds so they think they are eating with me and will eat happily too. Once they recognize it as food, they love sprouted more than unsprouted but they need to learn to eat them first.

Humans need to learn to recognize different food sometimes too. It was easy for me to eat raw vegan because there was a raw vegan restaurant in Victoria, where I could go and eat and see what I liked and they sold there cook book too. Then even more raw restaurants sprung up. My husband was very resistant to even trying any raw vegan unless it was raw dessert, untill he was diagnosed with Celiac disease. Then he missed his gluten foods so much, that he was willing to start trying things. in Kelowna no decent raw food places so always have to do my own.