Its ok to play with your food 😉 Heehee, if your a parrot, that is!
Using a simple brown paper bag (found a hundred brown bags at Safeway for less than $5) You can entertain your birds, teach them to forage by making them work to get to the treats or toys you have placed inside,and they then have the enjoyment of eating (or destroying) the goodies waiting for them. You can put Lafabers Nutriberries, some nuts, nuts, some carrot chunks, a few pieces of wood or random foot toys, or a mixture of fun things for them to discover. Each time you do it, add a few different items and put it in different places; using a wooden clothespin you can get it hung inside (or even OUTSIDE) the cage rather than placing it in a bowl, just to keep it new and exciting. And then there’s paper filters…. Oh the fun you can have using unbleached paper filters (and you can buy them for pennies!! I get ours at the dollar store, a hundred for a dollar!)
There are SO many fun, easy, foods you can make for your flock, in a matter of minutes, and with very few ” ingredients”- which as bird owners we know to appreciate when you need a “go to” idea to quiet the birds so you can make a phone call or put the baby down for a nap.
You can stuff them with in shell nuts, veggie or whole grain pastas and grains ( bonus- make cute jack on lantern faces for a fun twist or to encourage any picky kids to eat more veggies) Or try a warmed oatmeal, with seeds or Nutriberri crumbles on top. Or even use a whole Nutriberri or Nutripellet inside( warm it in the oven first and your birds will go CRAZY for them!) To make it a fun foraging treat, stick a few in a brown paper lunch sack to let the birds have a “brown bag snack” that they have to work to get to, then work to eat. Possibly providing you with a few extra minutes of your golden semi silence, lol.
A nice warm and very easy to make meal that will be sure to please your family AND your flock!
Start by gathering your ingredients. Use what you have on hand and vary it up each time. This time I used chopped fresh mini peppers, pre baked sweet potatoes, organic baby food pouches, pomegranate juice, two eggs, millet, whole wheat flour, cornmeal, and a bunch of frozen veggies.
Bring frozen veggies (peas, green beans, okra, and yellow squash to a boil for 3 minutes. Drain water, set aside and cover.
Cook the frozen collared greens in the microwave. Add enough water to cover the frozen greens cook for five minutes and do NOT drain when done. (Save the water to add to the dry mix. )
Smashed pre-baked sweet potatoes and baby food together( it actually broke my smasher,lol)
Add all cooked veggies together. In order to not dirty every dish in the house, I just mixed them in the glass baking pans I was going to bake them in.
In a big bowl I added the eggs(with shell) baby food, pom juice, and the reserved spinach water( go slowly, finding the right consistency by a little at a time to the dry mixes-whole wheat flour and yellow cornmeal
* as a note while making this it was pointed out to me that the jiffy mix I was planning on using has such a high sodium content, it was not a healthy choice. So we substituted it for yellow cornmeal. Here’s a pic I took comparing the two ingredient labels, check out the difference in the sodium levels! The jiffy mix has 340mg of sodium, while the yellow cornmeal has 0mg!! Bye bye jiffy.
Almost ready to bake. Add the bread mixture on top of your mixed veggies.
Add some millet on top (and yes, there is a difference in bird millet and human millet. LOL,and no, I did not always know this)
Bake at 350 for 40 minutes until done. You can insert a toothpick to test it, if it comes out clean its done. Will be a golden brown on top and your whole house will smell GREAT;)
Close up of our servings
Serving up the flock
Bottoms up, lol 😉
Bailey our blue and gold macaw deciding its its a hit or a miss….
** I LOVE ROUND TWO FOODS!! So I always save a little of my fresh stuff to use in another meal. This time I saved a little of the veggies so that the next morning I could microwave them and add them to some pellets for a quick easy quieter…. Err, I mean meal, lol.
Quinoa is one of my new favorite foods! Super nutrient packed and a complete source of proteins, this ancient grain should be a modern day diet staple (for people and for our parrots!) It’s just as simple to make as rice, and it’s easy to throw some frozen veggies (I prefer collared greens) in while the water and quinoa are coming to a boil, and 20 minutes later, when you remove the lid, you have a pan full of yummy and healthy goodness that can be made into to a multitude of delicious (and nutritious) meals and snacks. Such as this one 😉
For the birds special treat, we wanted to make them a spin on ice cream sundaes, so we made them quinoa sundaes in whole wheat waffle cups. It was easy, fun, and all nine birds loved them!
First gather all the ingredients you want to use. Look ariund, get creative, use what you have( that is bird safe) I used: 2 cups preprepared quinoa and collared greens, baby carrots, a handful of celery stalk and leaves, two organic baby food pouches, a cucumber, and whole wheat waffle cones.
It was so easy and fast to get served up as the quinoa and collared greens were already prepared (see, I told you to make a big batch beforehand!) and since had been in the fridge overnight was nice and cold (a new and different way to serve it to the flock, and perfect for this dish) We mixed in a pouch and a half of organic baby foods and the mixture into pretty little scoops inside the whole wheat waffle cones (found at Sprouts) For this one, I decided carrots and celery would be great “sprinkles” if chopped up in the mini food processor.
Then to top it off and make it look pretty, we garnished it with a slice of cucumber, celery leaf and a squirt of the rest of the baby food pouch.
All the Squawk 