LOOKING FOR GOOD GLOOP RECIPE!!

[seagoatdeb]

Just a question, where are you guys finding your frozen veggies, there are only two stores here where i can get organic frozen veggies that are not GMO. Small bags and expensive. I usually use fresh anyway, but like to have frozen on hand. It might be worth a trip to the US to stock up if you have a good source, it is only a 2 and a half hour drive to the US from where I live, and i wanted to go anyway to get some things that are hard to get here.

[Wolf]

Afraid I can't help as stores on West Coast are not the same ones as on the Eastern US.

[Pajarita]

Navy beans are the small white beans while the great northern are a larger white bean. As far as I am aware of there are very few varieties of small white beans with navy beans being the most common. We keep getting asked what are the small white beans that we are using and as in most other areas that I have lived in they are usually navy beans and so I tell the inquirer what bean I am using, so for the sake of clarity if you are not using navy beans, what are the small white beans that you are using so that I can try and find them , please. If I am using the wrong bean then I would like to know which bean to use.

To be honest with you, I really know nothing about different bean cultivars so I went to the Cook's Thesaurus (yes, there is such a thing ) and found out that navy and small white beans are the same, identical thing. This is what I found: "navy bean = Yankee bean = white pea bean = pearl haricot = Boston bean = Boston navy bean = pea bean = haricot blanc bean = small white bean = haricot bean = fagioli"

Apparently, they are called Navy beans because they were a staple in the Navy.

[Pajarita]

Just a question, where are you guys finding your frozen veggies, there are only two stores here where i can get organic frozen veggies that are not GMO. Small bags and expensive. I usually use fresh anyway, but like to have frozen on hand. It might be worth a trip to the US to stock up if you have a good source, it is only a 2 and a half hour drive to the US from where I live, and i wanted to go anyway to get some things that are hard to get here.

I find almost everything I need in my local Shoprite. There are a couple of exceptions (oat groats, peas and carrots, and chopped blue curly kale) that I need to go to Whole Foods for but what I do is, whenever I go, I buy for more than one batch of grains.

[seagoatdeb]

I will check out whole foods when we go for our trip, I only found two stores that had non GMO corn here and very expensive, for small bags for example. I have no trouble getting any vegetables fresh that is organic and non GMO, only frozen is expensive and hard to come by.

[owlyssa]

Hey, all! It's Kona's second full day of being home, and all is going well. He was really intrigued by the gloop I started him on yesterday morning, and he's been really game about trying new fruits and veggies. He loves carrots and watermelon!

I'm giving him gloop in the morning (7:00-10:00/11:00, I feel nervous about leaving it out any longer...), fresh fruit/veggies during the afternoon, and leaving him with some seeds and his usual mixed pellet diet he's been accustomed to. I'm hoping to slowly but surely transition him from the pellets and mix they were giving him, as I recall reading somewhere else on the forum that these don't really provide the nutrients he needs. That, and I'm a little wary of mixes that feel the need to dye in-shell peanuts blue, regardless of whether the dye is safe or not...

Does anyone have any recommendations as to the order/time frame that meals and foods should be offered? Is it safe to leave gloop out for long periods, or should I be removing it from the cage even earlier than I already am?

Thanks!

[Wolf]

I don't actually feed by the clock, I feed according to the light. I am always up before dawn sand when it is just getting light enough to see I feed my birds fresh raw produce leaving enough to last all day and within the next hour I give them their Gloop which again I provide enough to last all day long and then just as dusk is beginning I remove all of the food and give them their dinner of seed or seed/ nut depending on the species of bird. I remove the seeds after the birds go to sleep for the night.

It takes a little practice to know how much to give them as you want them to have enough fresh raw produce and gloop so that there is always a little bit when you change the foods out, but at the same time you don't want there to be a lot left. I feed the foods left by my parrots to the wild birds and the neighbors free range chickens, which ever gets to it first.

[liz]

I use wild and brown rice, pearl barley, faro. couscous, kamut and buckwheat grout with veggies. I have many mouths to feed so I prepare a tablespoon of each with dry corn, peas and carrots. I make up multiple packets of the dry food and soak one every night in boiling water and in a thermal cup. By morning my gloop is ready to feed. I drain and rinse it before feeding. Rambo and Myrtle get a tablespoon each of the soaked stuff and the rest go to the cockatiels on a large tray. I always have leftovers by the time I feed seed at bedtime. I always give them more than I expect them to eat. I don't want to find a clean tray. That would mean that some did not get enough.

[Pajarita]

I also feed by light and not the actual time of day. These days, I am getting up at 5 am and the birds are having their produce latest by 6 am. I leave the gloop out all day long, have been doing it for many years and have never had a single bird come down with a fungal infection so, obviously, the 'sky is falling' people who say that food needs to be removed after a few hours or the bird ends up eating more bacteria and fungus that anything else are not right. People confuse things... bacteria is what makes food decompose but not all bacteria is bad. As a matter of fact, birds love over-ripe fruit and I think that it's in this very early stage of decomposition that the best enzymes and beneficial bacteria is found.

Now, you are doing good but remember that you have a baby and that babies need to have two different kinds of soft food served fresh every day (they need the better nutrition that they provide vis a vis seeds and pellets).

[owlyssa]

Thanks for the recs, all! It's very helpful, and I'll modify my feeding schedule accordingly.

Now, you are doing good but remember that you have a baby and that babies need to have two different kinds of soft food served fresh every day (they need the better nutrition that they provide vis a vis seeds and pellets).

Should I then be offering something in addition to the gloop on a daily basis, like veggie purees/pulses? Thanks for your insight! As far as I can tell, Kona seems to pick out the sunflower seeds and peanuts from the store's pellet/seed mix that I brought home with him, and only in the early morning hours before I'm up and serving him his gloop. He's cottoned onto the fact that crunching the peanut shells REALLY REALLY loudly is a surefire way to get me up.