The Way I Feed, Part I

On top of the veggie/firm fruit/stem mix in the bowl is sprinkled two or three tablespoons of canary or finch seed (not vitamized!) to adhere to the fresh produce and attract those finicky eaters who like to throw out veggie chunks. Then a vitamin, spirulina, nutritional yeast, or clay-calcium powder is sprinkled on the fresh food in trace amounts only-approximately º tsp. for my entire flock. After all, this diet by itself is nutritious.

The corn-based soak or bean mix, depending on which day used, are now rinsed and colander-drained well on an absorbent cloth to eliminate excess wetness. This is poured into the large bowl and gently mixed with the stem/veggie/fruit/vitamins, etc. Usually I choose one root veggie and at this point grate it onto the mixture to release juices and enzymes: carrot, beet, turnip, yam, or purple potatoes are my favorites. If sprouts have been sprouted for the day, they are added last and the whole is carefully rolled and blended to avoid bruising live sprouts or smashing beans, etc.

Presto, it‘s ready. Sounds complicated but the whole process from cooking to finished feed for a two-dozen-bird aviary takes only one hour. Individual food bowls are prepared with the basic mix in proportion to how much each pair eats. A half to full teaspoon of pellets in sprinkled on top of each bowl, whole cracked nuts and pieces of ripe soft fruit are added to the fruit-loving species. Observation is here the key: some pairs eat more pellets, some species do not like sweet fruits (cockatoos and some psittacula for example); and as ripe fruit is mostly sugar, we consider veggies a much more important diet factor.

Okay. Our afternoon feeding takes place sometime between 3pm and 5pm. It consists of a measured amount of quality seed mix and nuts for the nut eaters. We do this at the end of the day so that birds will have a substantial slower digesting meal that lasts them between safflower-based diet and two types of sunflower-based mixed the larger striped sunflowers and the smaller black oil sunflower. Also alternated with these are a high quality cockatiel blend, which emphasizes smaller seeds millets, hemp, buckwheat, canary and the like. Even large parrots learn to eat this mix which is less fattening and has a wider nutrition/amino acid spectrum than the large hookbill seeds. We do NOT buy seed mixes which contain peanuts. Such peanuts can be old, small, rancid (taste one sometime!). Our birds like peanuts but we reserve human-grade, in-the-shell peanuts as treats or feed organic raw Spanish peanuts boiled in the morning with soak mixes.

Each portion of seed is roughly one to two tablespoons per amazon sized parrot. The leftovers, if any, from the morning feeding are taken in to account when serving seed to each cage. Some days, some birds get hardly any seed. The object is to give exactly enough seed mix so at the end of the day, then he or she has been given too much and will only pick out the preferred items. Buckwheat seeds, that little triangle (very nutritious!) brown ones are our indicator seeds. Invariably an eating parakeet will leave these grains until nearly last if they are not eaten, we know not to give more food. By 6pm or so, everyone is done crunching and all dishes can be gathered up and the excess poured out in the yard feeders for the wild cardinals, doves, etc. It is critical that seed dishes not be left in your birds cages overnight, or else the birds will wake early and fill up on leftover seeds, thus not being hungry for the more nutritious fresh, raw and soft foods. This is a typical novice mistake.

Further points: On rainy days, many birds prefer not to eat wet food. We often substitute seeds and green stems. Note that pellets do not do well when left out on damp days. We only serve pellets with wet food so their crunch becomes something special. Also we are not in favor of sweet treats, honey sticks, and such processed items. Healthfood snacks are preferred.