Do not attempy

[Cage Cleaner]

[GlassOnion]

That's funny. I make bird bread and the smell isn't bad at all. But I do use a different recipe.

[Zooey]

PLEASE share that recipe. I think I need a fluffier bread.

[GlassOnion]

2 cups Harrisons Crumbs
1/2 cup Barley
1/2 cup Oats (Natural)
1/2 cup Wheat Flour
2-3 jars of baby foods (veg. and 2 fruits, i.e. banana)
1/4 cup brown sugar
4 eggs with shells
1/2 cup peanut butter little cinnamon and pinch of nutmeg

Add approx. 1/2 cup each of the following:

Raisin
Cranberries
Speckled Butter Beans
Collard Greens (May add more of this one)
Broccoli (Finely Chopped)
Corn
Nuts (various, sliced almonds work great)
Parsley
Cilantro
Tarragon
Red and Orange Bell Pepper

Mix together and pour into baking dish.
Sprinkle top with additional Harrison Crumbs and extra egg shells (Optional, of course).
Bake at 350 degrees for 1 hour.
Check after 45-55 min.

I do this one but change up the veggies with sweet potatoes, beets, and such. I also add more liquid into the batter so the bread turns out more moist.

[allirho]

2 cups Harrisons Crumbs
1/2 cup Barley
1/2 cup Oats (Natural)
1/2 cup Wheat Flour
2-3 jars of baby foods (veg. and 2 fruits, i.e. banana)
1/4 cup brown sugar
4 eggs with shells
1/2 cup peanut butter little cinnamon and pinch of nutmeg

Add approx. 1/2 cup each of the following:

Raisin
Cranberries
Speckled Butter Beans
Collard Greens (May add more of this one)
Broccoli (Finely Chopped)
Corn
Nuts (various, sliced almonds work great)
Parsley
Cilantro
Tarragon
Red and Orange Bell Pepper

Mix together and pour into baking dish.
Sprinkle top with additional Harrison Crumbs and extra egg shells (Optional, of course).
Bake at 350 degrees for 1 hour.
Check after 45-55 min.

I do this one but change up the veggies with sweet potatoes, beets, and such. I also add more liquid into the batter so the bread turns out more moist.

Do you feed this to your budgie as well, Glassonion?
And do you mash the sweet potatoes or put them in in cubes, or tiny pieces?
I'd like to try this sometime for my little guy.

[GlassOnion]

Everything in the blender, so they all become this thick mush. I also add almonds, flax seed, pumpkin seeds, whatever else I feel like. Btw, I put the eggs in the blender SHELLED.

EDIT: I always do half the batch of the recipe. Don't do the whole thing, just half, in case your birds don't like it.

[Zooey]

What is Harrison's Crumbs? Is it just pellet powder or some kind of special bread powder?

[allirho]

What is Harrison's Crumbs? Is it just pellet powder or some kind of special bread powder?

I think it's referring to the leftover powder/crumbs that come from the bird crumbling the pellets as they eat them.

[Naurthon]

lol!
Isn't this only applicable assuming that every hour of the day is worth $8.40 or, at least, that you're spending your time dealing with pellet powder during your working hours?
Because your hours spent at home off work wouldn't be worth the same amount of money that your hours spent at home would be, given that most people are not paid to stay at home.
But, I am no expert on anything, so I might also have no idea what I'm talking about, lol!

Our time has value, even if it isn't directly spent making money. Even time spent asleep has value, as indicated by the amount of money some people spend on sleep-aid medications to ensure they get a good night's sleep. Granted, probably few people are using $70 worth of Tylenol PM a night, but sleep time can also be valued by the lowered productivity or work missed due to insufficient sleep, or even just the satisfaction (called "utility" in economic terms) of having slept well.

However, the time in question isn't sleep time, it is "chores around the house" time. People pay others to do household chores, and although I don't have any data as to the going rates for maids or housekeepers, I suspect it is at least the minimum wage, and $8.40 is close to (or even a little less than) the minimum wage in many places in the US. I chose that SPECIFIC amount because it was reasonably close AND it made the math easier, since it wasn't dealing with fractions of cents. While you may not be directly earning $8.40 an hour doing chores around your house, by doing them yourself, you are saving the $8.40 an hour (or thereabouts) you would have to pay someone else to do them, so the value of the time is the same either way. Even if the value of your time is half that, it still works out that if you spend an hour a month saving pellet powder and baking it into bread, from a purely financial basis, you are losing value.

Now there ARE other considerations, and it goes back to the "satisfaction" concept I mentioned a moment ago. There is a satisfaction value to some people for simply having made bread for their birds. How much that is depends on the person and could probably best be valued by what a person gives up by spending time baking birdy bread. That's called an opportunity cost. If you have a choice between making birdy bread and doing something else you generally like doing, like going to a movie for example, and you'd rather bake the bread, then the value of the satisfaction from making the bread would be greater than the value of whatever it was you were giving up. And if you're going to be making the bread anyway, the additional cost of saving the powdered pellets to add in is still probably going to be less than the value of the satisfaction gained. However, this value is a VALUE GAINED through satisfaction for making the bread. It is not a COST REDUCED from recycling the pellet powder.

So whether or not saving pellet powder for use in baking birdy bread makes sense really comes down to WHY the person is doing it. If it is done for the utility (satisfaction) of having made the bread, it is worth it; you'll come out ahead. If it is done SOLELY to reduce the cost of wasted pellets, then you're always going to come out in the red; the cost of time spent saving the pellets, not to mention the cost of the additional ingredients you wouldn't otherwise be using to bake birdy bread, make it a net loss. You can make a good argument for saving pellet powder for EMOTIONAL reasons. You cannot make a good argument for saving pellet powder for FINANCIAL reasons.

[allirho]

Our time has value, even if it isn't directly spent making money. Even time spent asleep has value, as indicated by the amount of money some people spend on sleep-aid medications to ensure they get a good night's sleep. Granted, probably few people are using $70 worth of Tylenol PM a night, but sleep time can also be valued by the lowered productivity or work missed due to insufficient sleep, or even just the satisfaction (called "utility" in economic terms) of having slept well.

However, the time in question isn't sleep time, it is "chores around the house" time. People pay others to do household chores, and although I don't have any data as to the going rates for maids or housekeepers, I suspect it is at least the minimum wage, and $8.40 is close to (or even a little less than) the minimum wage in many places in the US. I chose that SPECIFIC amount because it was reasonably close AND it made the math easier, since it wasn't dealing with fractions of cents. While you may not be directly earning $8.40 an hour doing chores around your house, by doing them yourself, you are saving the $8.40 an hour (or thereabouts) you would have to pay someone else to do them, so the value of the time is the same either way. Even if the value of your time is half that, it still works out that if you spend an hour a month saving pellet powder and baking it into bread, from a purely financial basis, you are losing value.

Now there ARE other considerations, and it goes back to the "satisfaction" concept I mentioned a moment ago. There is a satisfaction value to some people for simply having made bread for their birds. How much that is depends on the person and could probably best be valued by what a person gives up by spending time baking birdy bread. That's called an opportunity cost. If you have a choice between making birdy bread and doing something else you generally like doing, like going to a movie for example, and you'd rather bake the bread, then the value of the satisfaction from making the bread would be greater than the value of whatever it was you were giving up. And if you're going to be making the bread anyway, the additional cost of saving the powdered pellets to add in is still probably going to be less than the value of the satisfaction gained. However, this value is a VALUE GAINED through satisfaction for making the bread. It is not a COST REDUCED from recycling the pellet powder.

So whether or not saving pellet powder for use in baking birdy bread makes sense really comes down to WHY the person is doing it. If it is done for the utility (satisfaction) of having made the bread, it is worth it; you'll come out ahead. If it is done SOLELY to reduce the cost of wasted pellets, then you're always going to come out in the red; the cost of time spent saving the pellets, not to mention the cost of the additional ingredients you wouldn't otherwise be using to bake birdy bread, make it a net loss. You can make a good argument for saving pellet powder for EMOTIONAL reasons. You cannot make a good argument for saving pellet powder for FINANCIAL reasons.

I'm a university student and am taking introductory economics as an elective this term.
I've got a test this thursday, so I've really got to thank you for this post, Naurthon!!
You pretty much covered everything I've got to review and put it into perspective. So thanks! lol!
That definitely makes sense, though, now that I think about it- a person who receives no utility from making the bird bread would simply be using their time in a way that contributes less to their maximum utility than some other activity that could contribute more... and on the other hand, they are have no financial incentive to do so either. So unless someone has an emotional incentive to actually save the pellet powder and make the bread, there is no benefit to do so.
That's really interesting, thanks!