How do you serve your bird's food?

Do you have different food groups for different meals? I.e. Fruits for breakfast, veggies for lunch, nuts and grains for dinner?

Do you serve everything mashed up in a bowl? All the food groups together like I do?

Do you serve your bird side dishes of veggies or grains?

I'm interested in how you all serve your bird's meals!

I generally put most stuff through the food processor to chop it up into bite size pieces for the whole flock, mix it together in a tupperware container, add my seeds, rolled oats, dried chopped fruits and coconut.

I probably don't serve as many grains as I should, but it's mostly from annoyance while cooking them! Brown rice is easy, I have a rice cooker, but things like amaranth or bulgar wheat feels like it takes forever and I don't have enough pots to cook them all at once! So I tend to cook a batch once every three days or so of something and change it throughout the week.

I dish out my master mash into the bowls, mix in whatever grains I have, add one or two almonds per bird (two for the big guys) and top with sprouts that I have ready, and usually a chunk or two of some fresh cut fruit like apples, or banana, lately it's been pieces of oranges.

My conure pair and my amazon pair get a bit of a calcium supplement a few times a week, and Gonzo gets it maybe once a week. Every once in a while I'll give the amazon pair a supplement powder instead of the calcium, since they've been molting like crazy since I changed their diet.

I don't do anything specific but I use lentils where most of you guys in the states use beans.

Oh, I do save the majority fruit for weekends though, so he can spend the energy while he's out (he has more out time at the weekends).

Dry kibble goes in one bowl:


Diverse nuts go into foraging devices




Homecooked stuff gets thawed in the morning and gets placed into bowls warm, and I add room-temperature fresh chop to that. This bowl gets removed after 2-3 hours. They get the same warm stuff again for dinner.




Sometimes they can't 'help themselves' and dig in before I had a chance to portion it. :54:



In the afternoon I offer homebaked birdy bread.

Definitely coming to your place for dinner sometime Wendy! lol!

I serve breakfast and dinner each day, and have a bowl of dry out always.

Breakfast (mixed together in one bowl):
Defrosted frozen veggie mix (corn, peas, carrots, lima beans, green beans)
+Grain (either brown and wild rice/quinoa/amaranth blend or "Crazy Corn" bean/corn cooked mix - The Crazy Corn is Dexter's absolute favorite and he goes NUTS when I serve it)
+Chopped fresh veggies, whatever I have on hand (radishes, broccoli, peppers, squash, cucumbers, celery, parsley, spinach, kale, romaine lettuce)
+Fresh fruit, again whatever is in the house (apples, banana, mango, papaya, pomegranate, blueberries, blackberries)

Dinner:
Reconstituted Goldenfeast Caribbean Blend and Goldenfeast Bean Supreme mixed together. If the mix doesn't have any/many nuts or nut pieces in the scoop, I'll toss in a couple of pistachios, a walnut half or an almond.

Dry:
Golden'obles pellets, dried fruit, flowers and nuts mix.

Since Dexter is going through a major league molt, I've been a little concerned about providing extra protein, but I'm not exactly sure how to do that. I will very occasionally add egg to his diet, but not too often because I'm concerned about cholesterol. Are the beans and grains enough? What else could I add to up the protein content?

I'm almost identical to Dex mom in breakfast. It's a mix of Defrosted frozen veggies, and whatever I happen to have on hand for cooked/raw grain, veggies (broccoli, red cabbage).

Because my partner and I work 9-5s were out of the house for up to 13 hours a day. For this reason I don't like to use any fruits for breakfast. They are wet and sugary, a bad combo for bacteria. Don't want this sitting around in a cage for 13 hours. So it's mostly dry veggies.

Dinner - more frozen/fresh veggies, whatever is on hand. Snacks throughout the night (nutriberries, almond slivers). I'm apt to serve fruits for dinner since I can clean it out before bed. Pomegranates, squash, dragonfruit etc.

If he gets peckish overnight, he has access to Higgins fruit to nuts mix. Though this is almost out so I'll be switching him to a dried fruit mix from a local organic pet store.


DEXMOM: I think that should do it. When Parker went through his back in August I researched and gave some of the large vegetarian sources (beans etc) of incomplete protein. On rare occasions I'd give some egg, or a little nip of cheese or chicken. But they are not really a salted for those sources of protein so I kept those to a minimum.

I'm not nearly as organized about it as some of you. But I have one gcc so she really doesn't eat that much.

I leave pellets in her bowl all the time, she loves roudybush but she still has goldenobles right now too, but she's not eating them.

I give her some of whatever I'm having for breakfast, usually a mixed grain cereal and some fresh fruit. If I dont' have breakfast I'll give her some fruit either fresh/frozen/dried with a little of some kind of grain. I have a ton of different grains since I make my rats dry mix my self. I make up the bunnies breakfast of greens, so take a little of that and chop it up for Foo.

I Give tiny pieces of carrot or some other veggie to the bunny for treats, so I'll cut a little up for Foo as well.

Nuts I hand out as treats, or stick in foraging things. Same with peanuts in shells sometimes.

dinner is usually a mix of veggies both fresh and/or frozen. then a mix of grains and/or beans, lentils. If I'm eating unappropiate foods for the family, I'll give her canned beans or uncooked pasta and a mix of fresh and/or frozen veggies.

If it's not deadly she will get a little treat of the inappropriate foods that we ate f or dinner, like some tortilla, a bone, a little chunk of bread ect.

We don't really get much of the same things throughout the year, so a lot of what she eats is seasonal. A few constants would be dry whole grain pasta, frozen blueberries, fresh apples. We may eat a lot of romaine and mixed baby lettuces one week and the next it may be kale and collards, the next might be carrot and turnip tops. Herbs are always changing with the types of meals I cook-basil and oregano sometimes other times it's cilantro..ect

I actually used to give little tortilla rolls to my birds, a little peanut butter smear, some seed mix and some fruit, rolled it up tight and sliced into rolls! But I use the healthy tortillas.

For breakfast Paco always eats mushed up baked sweet potato, with grated carrots and brocolli mixed in on whole grain organic toast, with a little fruit. He has access to Harrisons pellets and two nutraberries for the day. For supper, he has veggie packed birdie bread, always warmed, with a little more fruit, raw carrots. He always gets some macaroni if I am eating it, which is a lot it seems, he loves it! He's not a big nut eater, but he loves his treat of 4 little pine nuts while I make my evening tea, it is our ritual.

You get creative and baffle them....lol. My grey then comes out
and wants to know what I'm eating. If I am eating it he'll eat.

Aquila said:

Definitely coming to your place for dinner sometime Wendy! lol!

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Yeah me too !!! That actually looks good!

I use the "cup" trip for mine. No matter how flavorless it is, but I know it's highly nutritious, if I'm eating it and making those delicious sounds, they just HAVE to have some too and they eat it with zeal. Husband laughs at me a lot for acting like something is delicious just to peak my fids' interest but it works! Flock mentality, well she ate it and thought it was hi my so I'm going to eat it too.

So you already know Miss Zilla is spoiled rotten, she gets her breakfast cooked rice, beans, pasta & veggie chop in her bowl in a warm pile, beside that she gets her "fresh" fruit & veggie chop, and beside that she gets 1 grape cut in half and a couple pieces of some other fruit or some berries. Her pecan half she gets handed to her at 8:00am sharp as I walk by her cage to go in my office for work. She gets her dry seed, dried fruit & veggie, pellet mix available all day and on top of that I toss a few dried peppers, a couple nutri-berries and 2 almonds. Throughout the day she is handed dried peppers or a bite of my lunch and a couple other treats.

For dinner she gets a small dessert plate with her warm chop, some warm veggies, 1 grape cut in half and something from my dinner (usually a piece of chicken or fish, or maybe sweet potato or baked regular potato) and then about 10 or 15 minutes before bedtime she gets a snack of a pecan or walnut half.

Amanda_Bennett said:

So you already know Miss Zilla is spoiled rotten, she gets her breakfast cooked rice, beans, pasta & veggie chop in her bowl in a warm pile, beside that she gets her "fresh" fruit & veggie chop, and beside that she gets 1 grape cut in half and a couple pieces of some other fruit or some berries. Her pecan half she gets handed to her at 8:00am sharp as I walk by her cage to go in my office for work. She gets her dry seed, dried fruit & veggie, pellet mix available all day and on top of that I toss a few dried peppers, a couple nutri-berries and 2 almonds. Throughout the day she is handed dried peppers or a bite of my lunch and a couple other treats.

For dinner she gets a small dessert plate with her warm chop, some warm veggies, 1 grape cut in half and something from my dinner (usually a piece of chicken or fish, or maybe sweet potato or baked regular potato) and then about 10 or 15 minutes before bedtime she gets a snack of a pecan or walnut half.

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Mind adopting me? I'm quiet, not a messy eater and I only molt a little bit.

Aquila said:

Amanda_Bennett said:

So you already know Miss Zilla is spoiled rotten, she gets her breakfast cooked rice, beans, pasta & veggie chop in her bowl in a warm pile, beside that she gets her "fresh" fruit & veggie chop, and beside that she gets 1 grape cut in half and a couple pieces of some other fruit or some berries. Her pecan half she gets handed to her at 8:00am sharp as I walk by her cage to go in my office for work. She gets her dry seed, dried fruit & veggie, pellet mix available all day and on top of that I toss a few dried peppers, a couple nutri-berries and 2 almonds. Throughout the day she is handed dried peppers or a bite of my lunch and a couple other treats.

For dinner she gets a small dessert plate with her warm chop, some warm veggies, 1 grape cut in half and something from my dinner (usually a piece of chicken or fish, or maybe sweet potato or baked regular potato) and then about 10 or 15 minutes before bedtime she gets a snack of a pecan or walnut half.

Click to expand...

Mind adopting me? I'm quiet, not a messy eater and I only molt a little bit.

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LOL, but do you clean cages? Vacuum? Do dishes? Laundry maybe? Yeah, neither does Zilla

We just got a caique maybe 3 weeks ago. We bought the seed and pellet mix they fed him at the store because he was used to that. In the morning he gets some fresh fruits and vegetables (he's a picky little buggar... I don't think he knows he's supposed to eat some of the stuff half the time. We have to coax him by handfeeding it to him or eating it ourseves. He wants to eat the things I'm eating...) So we do what we can. As of right now, we know that he likes a lot of apples, grapes, oranges, green peppers and snap peas. He also thinks nuts are great fun to crack open.

We've just changed his seed mix to a different brand that has more things than seeds in it. (It has dried fruits and what not) I don't remember what the name of it's called....

Also, weird question? (and maybe it doesn't belong here) do your birds prefer eating in certain places? Echo prefers eating on his play stand as opposed to the bowls in his cage.

It really varies for me, I change often. One of my favorite ways is to serve on a disposable plate so I can put it in groups and see what gets eaten and what doesn't, and experiment with each bird and how to get them to eat what I want. It also varies by species. For example, all of my IRNs are great eaters, and right now as we gear up for breeding season they always have dry seed, dry fruit, and pellets available at all times. This in no way keeps them from absolutely demolishing their fresh veggies, fruit, and sprouts at meal times! In this climate, fresh food goes bad quickly so it must be served in meals.

I have a dry food bowl, and a wet food bowl, and then a water dish or two water dishes depending on the configuration of the cage...

The dry food bowl has things like nuts, pelets, seeds, etc.

The fresh food bowl has treats, fruits, veggies, pasta, etc.

At night, I change out the fresh food bowls, and they get a little of what ever we are having for dinner that they can eat in their treat cups.

amanda_bennett said:

aquila said:

mind adopting me? I'm quiet, not a messy eater and i only molt a little bit.

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lol, but do you clean cages? Vacuum? Do dishes? Laundry maybe? Yeah, neither does zilla :d

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yeah, well, being superior beings at all... There role is to supervise and be served... Just like royalty through the ages...

Clean-up work is for the peasants! :d