by Pajarita » Wed Sep 11, 2019 9:38 am
There are several recipes of gloop right here on this forum but, basically, gloop is a dish of cooked whole grains mixed with chopped veggies. Thankfully, nowadays, one can find whole grains in virtually any regular supermarket whereas, years ago, we had to order them online from specialized stores. I use kamut, hulled barley, spelt, wheat, oat groats, red and black rice and I can find all of them, except for the oat groats, in Shoprite. I get the oat groats from Whole Foods but you can use steel cut oats (aka Irish Oatmeal) that you can also get at the supermarket (only do not cook them along with the other whole grains because they will become mush, just add them to the cooked grains as soon as you turn off the heat under the pot, mix them into the other grains and cover the pot for about 20 minutes or so - the heat and moisture in the grains will cook them enough). Also, make sure the grains do not 'open up' because the birds like them better when they are whole and separated from one another. When you put the grains in the pot, add a lot of water, bring to a boil then allow it to simmer for 25 or 30 minutes (keep on checking to make sure the water does not disappear and your grains burn at the bottom of the pot) only, this will make them 'al dente'. Cook the rices separately (you can add brown lentils to this mix, if you wish) and cook them thoroughly but, again, don't allow them to became mush. Once you have the grain/rice/lentils cooked, mixed and cooled, add frozen chopped veggies to it (do not thaw the veggies, they need to stay frozen until right before you serve the gloop to retain maximum nutrition). I use chopped broccoli (make sure it's the chopped kind and not the florets or the pieces because, if you don't, they will pick it and throw it out without eating it), peas, carrots (the diced kind, not the one in round slices), corn (they LOVE corn), butternut squash (the diced, not the mashed) and cooked sweet potatoes (you can boil, bake or nuke them in the skin, then peel and cut in pieces). Add a bit of flax seed, a bit of sesame seed (only this time of the year and until the equinox) and voila! Gloop! Split the lot into daily portions and freeze them. Then, every evening you take out the portion for the following day and allow it to thaw OR you can thaw it in the microwave in the morning before you serve it.
Put the gloop spread out on a white, disposable paper plate at the bottom of the cage (tiels are partial ground foragers and would instinctively go to ground to eat it) and watch them go for it! Now, the trick to transition them easily is to take out the seed mix given for dinner the night before once they are asleep and put the gloop out at dawn (because that is the time they eat in the wild) along with whatever raw produce you are going to use for the day. I've only had a couple of tiels that actually ate fruits but they all loved their leafy greens and ate all the veggies in the gloop so, all in all, even if they don't eat any raw fruits, they are still getting excellent nutrition. Mind you, you do have to supplement them with a multivitamin/mineral twice or three times a week because they cannot produce their own vit D3 without daily direct sunlight exposure.
And don't worry if they don't eat it the first day, just leave it there all day, take it away in the evening and replace it with their seed mix dinner - this way, they won't starve but they will realize that the gloop is their breakfast and once they try it, they will love it. I promise you.