Birds' diet

[shiraartain]

Speaking of sprouts..the sink wherethe twins tend to use for the birds' water and sometimes accidentally drop seed started sprouting seeds out of the drain.....my dad is not happy lol.

Parjarita, they love the soaked grains. Gobble it right up. I think rolled oats are different from oatmwal, though im not sure. Sometimes i'll sprinkle dry oats on top because someone will have already let the birds out and they'll be debating iver whether the food is worth more than their freedom. Will try the apple cider vinegar if we have any, if not, ill pick some up tomorrow.

I thought they weren't eating seed because it seemed untouched when I took it out every morning. I was a bit confused because I know they fly into their cage and start eating it in front of me so how could it be that it was untouched in the morning? (My hypothesis was ghosts)
but I realized after posting that they just eat it so the hulls fall to the floor of the cage.

Liz, Clover and Lemon's previous owner fed them a lot of nuts-- he gave us bags full of them. They squabble over almonds, and I wanted them to stay hydrated so I started soaking them. Will talk to the twins about moving almonds to dinnertime. Fajr doesn't care for almonds at all.

[Pajarita]

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

I only feed them sprouts at breeding time but it's actually much simpler than the instructions the sprouters bring. I use a glass jar (an empty pickles one), put about a quarter of seeds in it in warm water for 24 hours, then I rinse the seeds under the running faucet with room temperature water, wash the jar and put the seeds back in it without adding any water to it. Then you rinse them the same way every 12 hours until you see the green 'tails' coming out - voila! sprouts! (the quarter jar of seeds becomes an entire jar of sprouts and I use them for everybirdy from finches to cockatoos so, if you are only going to make some for your two birds, Navre, use a heaping tablespoon of seeds only) I use the soaking/sprouting mix for canaries and mix the sprouts into the gloop because the large parrots would not eat the bigger sprouts on their own.

[Pajarita]

Speaking of sprouts..the sink wherethe twins tend to use for the birds' water and sometimes accidentally drop seed started sprouting seeds out of the drain.....my dad is not happy lol.

Parjarita, they love the soaked grains. Gobble it right up. I think rolled oats are different from oatmwal, though im not sure. Sometimes i'll sprinkle dry oats on top because someone will have already let the birds out and they'll be debating iver whether the food is worth more than their freedom. Will try the apple cider vinegar if we have any, if not, ill pick some up tomorrow.

I thought they weren't eating seed because it seemed untouched when I took it out every morning. I was a bit confused because I know they fly into their cage and start eating it in front of me so how could it be that it was untouched in the morning? (My hypothesis was ghosts)
but I realized after posting that they just eat it so the hulls fall to the floor of the cage.

Liz, Clover and Lemon's previous owner fed them a lot of nuts-- he gave us bags full of them. They squabble over almonds, and I wanted them to stay hydrated so I started soaking them. Will talk to the twins about moving almonds to dinnertime. Fajr doesn't care for almonds at all.

Rolled oats are what Americans call oatmeal. Don't use the apple cider vinegar on them, it's only for soaking whole grains.

[Navre]

I'll try some more sprouts. I think these birds will eat just about anything.

[seagoatdeb]

My Meyers will eat just about anything especially if I eat it. He got a litlle rice mixture with a little turmeric on it, but I mixed what I was eating with turmeric and butter, so I didnt want them to have that kind of saturated fat. He landed in my bowl 3 times and then stained my pants with his turmeric feet. What I am eating is always better lately.

[seagoatdeb]

With sprouted nuts, I serve at least half my nuts as sprouted nuts. I let them eat out of the shells for some of there nuts. The sprouting removes the sprouting inhibiter which is hard on the digestion, and increases the nutrition. Parrots seem to know that food need to be soaked, they make a lot of birdie soup. Gaugan has stopped making the soup, but Sunny needs his water changed 5 times a day right now. He just decided to soak some squash seeds and they were fresh out of the squash too.

[Pajarita]

Which nuts do you sprout, Seagoatdeb? I kind of gave up on it because, according to this http://www.vegetariantimes.com/blog/how ... and-beans/, you can only do almonds, nothing else would actually sprout.

[seagoatdeb]

Which nuts do you sprout, Seagoatdeb? I kind of gave up on it because, according to this http://www.vegetariantimes.com/blog/how ... and-beans/, you can only do almonds, nothing else would actually sprout.

if they are truly raw and have not just been pasteurized and called raw, they will all sprout. I sprout for all my milks, smoothies and raw soups, cashews, almonds, walnuts, hemp seeds, chia seeds, pumpkin seeds, oat groats, and buckwheat, just off the top of my head. You need to buy them at a dedicated raw place and I have been able to sprout everything except hemp seeds when I stayed for a few months in the states, I can only find truly raw hemp seeds in Canada.

Here is where I get a lot of my things wholesale in Canada, they even come to town once a month so I can pick it up. But they ship too. http://www.realrawfood.com/ This will help the Canadians anyway, but you need to find the American equivalent. In both Canada and the USA they are allowed to pasteurize and still call it raw, so you do have to find a good place to buy where it is really raw and alive and can sprout.

[shiraartain]

Rolled oats are what Americans call oatmeal. Don't use the apple cider vinegar on them, it's only for soaking whole grains.

The oatmeal ive eaten has always been mush, thus my confusion.

what exactly does the vinegar do with whole grains?

[seagoatdeb]

Oat groats are the grain, rolled oats have had some processing.