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Bird only does tricks for treats!

Exchange information about how to teach specific tricks to parrots. Most of these techniques should apply to all bird species. Share your success stories.

Re: Bird only does tricks for treats!

Postby Cresseliaaaa » Fri Jan 16, 2015 7:34 pm

So friends, ive found this lady who has put the standard gloop recipie in an easier perspective for me


"#1
Gloop
04-28-2013, 11:44 AM
Gloop is basically a dish made of cooked whole grains, beans and veggies. Mine has oat groats, red hard winter wheat (for warm weather season) or white soft spring wheat (for cold weather season), kamut, brown rice, barley, toasted buckwheat, lentils, tomato paste, small white beans, chick peas, mote, corn, peas, carrots, green beans, broccoli, sweet potatoes, flax and sesame seed.

I cook the raw stuff in batches, cooking together the stuff that takes the same amount of time, as follows:
wheat and kamut
lentils and brown rice (with the tomate paste added to the water)
oats and barley"

She then adds different flavours for different days, Ie peppers, oregano, olives etc for pizza flavour. Or organic low sugar dried pineapple, cinnamon, honey, raisins, currents etc for sweet.
Tell me what you this about her base "gloop" though!
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Cresseliaaaa
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Re: Bird only does tricks for treats!

Postby Wolf » Sat Jan 17, 2015 11:42 am

I personally have no issues with the particular ingredients as listed although I don't know what mote is so I will look it up. But this recipe says nothing about how much of what or of what type. For example using say 1/4 cup each of the whole grains, equal parts of small white beans and lentils with the bean/ lentils being 25% of the whole grain mixture. Equal amounts of the vegetables mixed together and then mix 50% vegetables with 50% whole grain/ bean mix. Or something similar. The most difficult part of creating a recipe such as this is in providing the proper ratios of calories, vitamins and minerals, proteins and fats, and fibers. I say fibers because there are digestible and non digestible fiber.
I am still working on the ratios of all of these items, but like most of us I am relying primarily on providing a large variety of ingredients to provide an adequate amount of all of these things as well as using a high quality seed mix to further enhance my birds diet.
Perhaps the most difficult of this process is that at this point in time their has been no extensive research into the dietary requirements of either parrots as a whole or for the individual species of parrots. Still today. we don't even know the natural diet of any of the species of parrots. We have a very general idea of some of the foods that they naturally consume but no indications as to the ratios of the things that they have been observed to eat in their natural environments. I suspect that for those of us who are concerned with providing the best diet for our birds that we can, that we will be tweaking our recipes for many, many years to come.
Wolf
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Re: Bird only does tricks for treats!

Postby Cresseliaaaa » Sat Jan 17, 2015 5:41 pm

the amount of each ingredient for adequate nutrition is what worries me the most.
It's also dependant on the birds needs (he's a baby so he will need all of them obviously) but also dependant if he will eat it.

I would talk to an avian vet about it but they'll tell me what every vet does which is "making your own food can cause over or malnutrition"

Any suggestions on amounts or other ingredients I could add ?
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Re: Bird only does tricks for treats!

Postby Wolf » Sat Jan 17, 2015 7:13 pm

Honestly at this point I am not sure, are you using a seed mix for them at this time? If so what seed mix is it? When trying to work out what I think might be the best diet that I can produce I have to take into account all of the foods that are going to be a regular part of the diet so that I can try to balance the ingredients nutritionally.
Wolf
Macaw
 
Gender: This parrot forum member is male
Posts: 8679
Location: Lansing, NC
Number of Birds Owned: 6
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African Grey (CAG)
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Budgie
Flight: Yes

Re: Bird only does tricks for treats!

Postby Pajarita » Sun Jan 18, 2015 3:03 pm

The lady that gave that recipe is me and this one was just a simple list of the ingredients and process but I do believe there are other versions of it which I made more complete. One of these days I will make gloop and take pictures so you can all see what it looks like but the end result is, as Wolf said, roughly 50% cooked veggies and 50% grains and pulses with just a bit of flax seed all year round plus sesame and chia during breeding season.

Wolf, we do know what parrots natural diets are, the problem is that all birds are seasonal eaters so they consume more of one element than another depending on the season or what they find that particular day and figuring out the exact proportions (percentage of protein or fat or fiber or vitamin/minerals values, etc) would mean trapping lots and lots of them, killing them and analyzing what is still there in their digestive tract.

Almost all vets will tell you to feed pellets but the sad truth is that vets really do not study psittacine nutrition at all. I have avian medicine texts, the same ones the vets use to study, and they only cover avian nutrition in general and avian means a very WIDE range of diets from meat to insects to fruit to grains to nectar, etc. And the chapter is more geared toward fowl than anything else...

I actually feed all my birds from budgies to cockatoos the same thing: gloop, produce and seed. I will be the first to admit it's not perfect as far as addressing specific needs of different species and it's not as seasonal as it should be although I do reduce protein during the resting season but I also believe it's much better, much healthier and much closer to their natural diet than pellets.

As to fulfilling all their dietary needs... well, my birds get all the elements: protein, fat, vitamins, minerals, phytonutrients (large range of fruits, veggies and leafy greens as well as cruciferous) and the right type of fiber (often not found in pellets), it has the same amount of moisture as their natural diet would have because the dry stuff (grains and pulses) is cooked so it's infused with water as well as made easier to digest (an important consideration, I think, because none of them are part of their wild natural diet -or, at least, they were not when they were first created even though they might be today as they do consume human crops). I also give my birds a multi vitamin/mineral supplement once a week in their water. It's meant to be used every single day but I use 1.5 the daily dosage once a week to cover any deficiency the diet might have (like vit D3, for example). As far as I can tell, it works because I've been doing it for many years (I think about 18) and my birds are healthy to the point that not a single one of them has ever gotten a fungal infection and I can count the bacterial ones with the fingers of one hand even though I have around 40 birds and most of them are older.
Pajarita
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Re: Bird only does tricks for treats!

Postby Cresseliaaaa » Sun Jan 18, 2015 4:49 pm

For Wolf:
So for seed mixes I have two brands:
One seed mix was left over from my love birds so it's a standard shop brand "Trill" mix and the other is a millet, sunflower and white seed mix which I use for training (I pick out the white and sunflower seeds for rewards)

I didn't give him seeds seeing as I was convinced pellets and healthy greens etc was his "complete and balanced diet", but this morning I've given him: oats, hemp seeds, some pellets, millet seeds, goji berries, black berries, raspberries, cashews, almonds, walnuts, broccoli and some salad mix. All organic by the way

For everyone:
Today I might start cooking his gloop.
So I understand he needs carbohydrates like sweet potato, potato, pasta. Proteins like legumes, chick peas, lentils, minerals and vitamins like broccoli, cauliflower, carrot but what about fats, calcium, fibre and other essential nutrients?

Also, in conjunction with his gloop I'll still feed him his fruits, nuts, roots, leafy greens, yes?

A few other recipie a mentioned using canned tomato paste for extras vitamins, some quinoa, chia seeds for filling, flaxseeds/ flaxseed oil for maintaining healthy skin and feathers, herbs and even spices for taste (and nutrients)?
Are these okay? If so what would be okay for parrots?
Anything that could be added to the 'essential nutrient' list to put into his gloop would be amazing!
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Re: Bird only does tricks for treats!

Postby Wolf » Sun Jan 18, 2015 6:50 pm

One of the problems that was encountered by feeding parrots an all seed diet was that they were fine as far as essential nutrients went but were too high in fats and proteins. This was not a problem in their natural environment as the seeds only made up a small portion of their total diet and seeds were also only available on a seasonal basis and not year round. The problems only developed when we fed them seeds as their entire or majority of their diet and fed it all year long as well. I feed a version of Pajarita's gloop and I also feed them a high quality seed mix. I feed them gloop in the mornings and the seed mix for their dinner and am of the opinion that they are not lacking in any dietary requirements that I am aware of. I also use a vitamin/ mineral supplement for my birds although I provide mine mixed in their gloop. I give the a single days dosage spread out over three days and also add a single day dose of probiotics once a week in their food.
I have had all of my birds for close to a year and longer but have just recently started adding the probiotics and vitamin/ mineral supplement to their diet, I have not had a single health issue since my first bird came here.
Wolf
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African Grey (CAG)
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Re: Bird only does tricks for treats!

Postby Cresseliaaaa » Mon Jan 19, 2015 1:35 am

What brands do you two use? Or what would you consider a "high quality seed mix" (what makes it supiror to other mixes)?

Also the Internet is very contradicting.
It says garlic power, chilli flakes, kale, chickpeas, lentils and beans are food for birds but then other sites say so completely avoid them. Heeeelp!!
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Re: Bird only does tricks for treats!

Postby Wolf » Mon Jan 19, 2015 7:54 am

I know exactly what you are going through in finding reliable information on the internet. What you are dealing with is the new information vs. the old accepted ways and information as both are being strongly represented there at this time.
Pajarita's delivery is harsher than mine but she consistently strives to provide the best available information from documented scientific sources, as I also try to do. So if you just don't read any emotion into her words or ignore the delivery and just concentrate on the information you will see that she is providing a lot of accurate and valuable information.
As to the items that you mentioned all of them are fine for your birds to eat, just make certain that the beans and lentils are thoroughly cooked first. I also would have t tendency to not overdo the kale due to its high iron content.
Allow me to provide you with the link to the best list that I have found so far as to what is or is not safe for your birds. viewtopic.php?f=8&t=12521 This list begins on page two of this thread and goes into foods, houseplants, trees, woods, as well as household products. I hope that you like it.
I go by a listing of ingredients contained in the mix, paying close attention to the order in which they are listed. The more of an item that is used in the mix the closer it is to the top of the list. So if it lists safflower seeds third and whole wheat sixth then I know that it contains more safflower seeds than whole wheat. I look to see how much sugar is in the product as well as chemical compounds, the sugars they like to try and hide from you, and the chemicals are usually unpronounceable words. I don't like sugars, chemicals or soy products. I prefer all organic products for my birds as well. I never buy colorful seeds as the are the highest in dyes, sugars, soy and artificial chemicals.
If you go window shopping and find a few seed mixes that you like and provide me with either the link to the product or the exact name of the product, I will be happy to look them over and let you know what I think of them.
Wolf
Macaw
 
Gender: This parrot forum member is male
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Number of Birds Owned: 6
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African Grey (CAG)
Yellow Naped Amazon
2Celestial Parrotlet
Budgie
Flight: Yes

Re: Bird only does tricks for treats!

Postby liz » Mon Jan 19, 2015 9:10 am

You know, we should really move the diet information into DIET so we can refer new people to that to get them started and then build on it.

I have had feathered friends for 20+ years. The best info I could get comes from Wolf and Pajarita mostly. I would never have thought about steaming grain so it pops open to give to my babies. Even though I was feeding fresh foods all along, I was just giving them dry grains with bird seed.
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