Gardening for your Parrots

Gardening for your Parrots

Hi I wanted to start a thread about gardening.


Since I plant a LARGE garden every year, and would love to be able to grow all my parrot food for a fraction of the costs of a product store.

Since eclectus parrots (and others) have a garden type diet, and the ingredients for making everyday chop are things like;

kale, collard greens, mustard greens, arugula, parsley, cilantro, basil, greens Carrots, pumpkin, bell peppers, jalapeno peppers, Jamaican hot peppers, chili peppers, squash, snap peas, broccoli, kale, turnips, radishes, cucumbers, melon, corn, etc…

does and gardeners on the form grow food for their parrots?

If so, what? And how do you harvest your crop and save it?

Cooked?
Uncooked?
Vacuum sealed,
Mason jars? Etc.

Thanks
Sam

What an interesting topic!



My wife has grown in our yard many kinds of peppers, as well as eggplants, cilantro, tomatoes, rosemary, sage, kale, celery, lavender over the years. Our birds don't seem really interesting in eating those things that can be fed them. Probably too used to their combination Zupreem/Golden Feast.

We harvest things when they're ripe, or just past, ideally, and try to use them up in the weeks thereafter. Too often my wife has to hear me gripe that we end up throwing away the literal fruits of her labor because she's forgotten about them in the crisper drawer, haha. We don't really jar things in any special way, though she could probably make a kind of kimchi out of the greens we've grown. We have a vacuum sealer that she also seems to have forgotten about since getting!:18: Ideally we just cook up everything we pick shortly after taking it off the stem.

dhraiden said:

What an interesting topic!



My wife has grown in our yard many kinds of peppers, as well as eggplants, cilantro, tomatoes, rosemary, sage, kale, celery, lavender over the years. Our birds don't seem really interesting in eating those things that can be fed them. Probably too used to their combination Zupreem/Golden Feast.

We harvest things when they're ripe, or just past, ideally, and try to use them up in the weeks thereafter. Too often my wife has to hear me gripe that we end up throwing away the literal fruits of her labor because she's forgotten about them in the crisper drawer, haha. We don't really jar things in any special way, though she could probably make a kind of kimchi out of the greens we've grown. We have a vacuum sealer that she also seems to have forgotten about since getting!:18: Ideally we just cook up everything we pick shortly after taking it off the stem.

Click to expand...

hmmm, I wounder why your birds don't like them... seems like they should not be able to tell apart something grown in your garden or from a produce store.


RE "crisper" it does help using your crisper though LOL



I posted a pic of my garden above but don't see it in my post?


I will try again in this post.

here is some more information on Gardening and Dehydrating your own bird food/chop.


avian health and nutritionhttps://thebestbirdfood.com/blogs/avian-health-and-nutrition/dehydrated-food-is-still-raw


Since I plant a large garden each year, I have freeze dried many times using a large over style dehydrator from Cabelas the digital kind with 12 shelves which I have two of them.


What I do is simply wash and dry veggies / fruit, slice thin and lay on dehydrator sheets close dehydrator and turn on set timer for desired temp and time.
Once dehydrated I vacuum seal the food in bags, the bags keep well on the shelf or refrigerated. But I keep in my pantry.

Doing this, you can grow and harvest all the fresh bird food / chop that you need and it will last the whole year till the next crop season.

The cost of planting my garden is the price of seeds that you find in home depot, Lowes and other stores.

So I am now going to do this with my bird food/chop then mix with some fresh produce as well. I think it will save a ton of money, and my Parrots will love it.

That's some garden!!! I just grow peppers, but I might try green beans or something easy lol

The most simple bit of bird gardening I do is I have a big or full of dirt, then I throw a handful of Finch seed in and keep the water up to it. After a while seeding grasses grown up which then can be fed out to the birds over time, and the green seeding grasses have a much higher nutritional value than dry seed
It is something so simple that will benefit your birds
Thanks
Noah Till

Laurasea said:

That's some garden!!! I just grow peppers, but I might try green beans or something easy lol

Click to expand...

Thanks


I live on acreage, put in irrigation, plant seeds and potted plants each spring...


everything I plant grows as it shood... birds, rabbits, and deer are a problem, so added chicken wire at the bottom, and deer jump cable over the fence... keeps them out...


Also raise free-range Chickens for eggs

Oh man, those eggs must be so tasty!!! A freind gave me some eggs from her chickens once and I couldn't believe the difference!!!

I grew up in Illinois the prairie state, and had pasture raised beef. A real pasture with wild onion, garlic, wildflower, prairie grasses. The taste of that meat has never been matched..

You've inspired me I'm going to try a small veggies patch this spring. It's just been so dry and extreme heat the last few years...

What do you recommend I grow? Something on that can take the heat

Laurasea said:

Oh man, those eggs must be so tasty!!! A freind gave me some eggs from her chickens once and I couldn't believe the difference!!!

I grew up in Illinois the prairie state, and had pasture raised beef. A real pasture with wild onion, garlic, wildflower, prairie grasses. The taste of that meat has never been matched..

You've inspired me I'm going to try a small veggies patch this spring. It's just been so dry and extreme heat the last few years...

What do you recommend I grow? Something on that can take the heat

Click to expand...

just look up what your parrots eat, then plant them.
the key would be to get some gardening soil... then water with recommended days and times for best results.


If your parrot likes radishes, including the greens. this would be the easiest to grow.



then other greens, kale, Collard Greens etc... then Squash & zucchini, Cucumber, corn, peas, melons, all easy to grow...


the main thing it to grow what your parrot likes, plus what you like to eat as well... this way you both eat healthy...



google, Gardening for Parrots... or specifically your breed of Parrot. :33:


I will be feeding fresh and dehydrating, vacuum sealing, to last the whole year till next growing season...

Laurasea said:

Oh man, those eggs must be so tasty!!! A freind gave me some eggs from her chickens once and I couldn't believe the difference!!!

I grew up in Illinois the prairie state, and had pasture raised beef. A real pasture with wild onion, garlic, wildflower, prairie grasses. The taste of that meat has never been matched..

You've inspired me I'm going to try a small veggies patch this spring. It's just been so dry and extreme heat the last few years...

What do you recommend I grow? Something on that can take the heat

Click to expand...

oh and the eggs are great LOL

Wow most impressive!