The CHOP Chronicles!

So last night I made my very first batch of bird CHOP!!! Behold...




The ingredients....

- One package of frozen mixed veggies (peas, corn, green beans, carrots)
- 1 cup broccoli
- 1/2 cup cauliflower
- 1 sweet potato
- 1 Mango
- 1 cup red quinoa
- 1 cup whole grain pasta (angel hair)
- 1 cup 9 bean soup mix
- 1/2 cup oats
- 1/4 cup flax seeds
- 1/3 cup spray millet
- 1/2 cup Tropimix seed/pellet mix

How I did it:

1. I soaked the beans overnight, then rinsed them thoroughly.

2. I boiled the beans, red quinoa (rinsed), and pasta in water, all separately. The beans cooked for 30 minutes, the quinoa for 15, the pasta for 10.

3. As they were cooking, I peeled the sweet potato and chopped it up in the food processor. I threw that into a very large mixing bowl (raw), along with the frozen veggies.

4. I chopped up the broccoli, cauliflower, and mango in the food processor and put into the big bowl.

5. After the grains and beans were done cooking, they were all drained, rinsed, and went over top everything in the bowl.

6. I added the dry ingredients -- oats, flax seed, millet and seed/pellet mix.

7. Husband helped me mix thoroughly

8. I put 2 cups of chop into each freezer bag and threw them all (but one) into the freezer done!


Here's another shot of the mix....





And here's how much I got out of this batch. About 7 1/2 bags!





So I have two birds -- a male and female cockatiel. They have been fed a seed/pellet mix their entire life, and I just felt as though I wanted to give them the nutrition they deserved. I researched different recipes for chop and came up with something I could handle, not too many ingredients, but enough to give them a good well-rounded base.

I tried to stick with the formula of 40% vegetables, 10% fruit, 40% grains/beans and 10% dry ingredients.


I think I made enough for a month, maybe a little more. I'm not really sure yet as its my first real batch. Because my birds are not accustomed to a chop diet yet and aren't huge on new stuff, I am transitioning them into it. I used the 3:1 ratio of their old seed/pellets and chop and mixed it all together so the seeds ended up sticking to the chop.

Here they are pigging out on it this morning:

I'm not sure how they like it so far, but they were eating from the moment I filled their bowl to when I left for work, so I can only assume it was good to them. I will slowly transition them until they are eating all chop in the morning, and then I will add fresh chopped veggies and a little fruit with it, as I know chop is meant to be a BASE, and not the only source of nutrition. But overall, I am SO happy with how it turned out and how the birds seem to like it!!


So, what I learned from my first batch of CHOP:

- It really helped getting all of my ingredients one day, and preparing the chop another day.

-I probably won't use angel hair pasta again. I think it added more moisture than spiral pasta would have. (The only reason I got it was because my local grocer is smaller than the one across town but also lacks the variety of pasta at the other store. I had to make do)

- I think I was supposed to soak the quinoa overnight with the beans (separate), but I did rinse them and cooked per package instructions.

- The mango was very wet. I think next time I will use less moisture-laden fruits, like strawberries or something.

- I think next time I use sweet potato I'll cook it so its softer.

-It took me way less time than I thought it would take. I was seriously ready for a 3 hour chop session but I started cooking the grains at 7:30 and got done with mixing and bagging by 9pm.


Overall....

This was such a fun experience and actually really EASY! I do have smaller birds and only two of them, so I think that makes it a little easier. I am going to continue my CHOP Chronicles in the hopes of helping others figure out how to do it, and every time I make a new batch I will be posting it here in this thread! As I'm a beginner to this, I would love tips and advice, too! Thanks guys for reading this long post!!

Well done! The peers will be pusher their 'staff' to provide them the same!

Those this mean that there will be monthly updates as each new Chop story develops!

Again, Well Done!!!

Excellent! Thanks for sharing the recipe and tips. You can under cook the pasta a little bit and it should absorb any extra moisture.

It's strangely satisfyingly making chop! I wish you every success in your future experimental chop endeavours! Please keep sharing!!!

That looks really good, and more important is very healthy! It may take a while for them to fully enjoy, but if you remove the other food types and give JUST chop for a few hours, they will have more incentive.

I like this chop recipe, it looks very manageable. I admit I haven't attempted cooking for Kermit, my GCC in a while, because it all seems so overwhelming. Plus the fact that this stuff stores well in the freezer is good (I've had bad luck with freezer burn in the past)

I'll try a variation of this. But with kale and blueberries because Kermit really likes those (and they're very healthy !)

I thought I read somewhere that legumes were a no-no? Did it completely make that up?


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I made the chop from the recipe in the OP, two slight variations, I probably used too many beans but anyway Perjo won't touch it. Only been day two but there must be something in there she doesn't like the sight of.

Hopefully she will come around to it today, I've wasted 3 small servings of it by putting it in her bowl and hours laters seeing it all still sitting there.

Inger said:

I thought I read somewhere that legumes were a no-no? Did it completely make that up?


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Click to expand...

I'm wondering where you heard, this, because this is not true. Legumes (which includes beans, lentils, chickpeas, etc.) are great for birds and are a great source of protein and fiber. Most of the recipes I have found for parrot chop utilize legumes. Often times they're cooked to soften them up. My female cockatiel, Peach, loves beans The soup mix I used is excellent because it has 9 different kinds of beans in it.

Here are some great resources I've found explaining legumes and their nutrition for birds. One Two Three

DRB said:

I made the chop from the recipe in the OP, two slight variations, I probably used too many beans but anyway Perjo won't touch it. Only been day two but there must be something in there she doesn't like the sight of.

Hopefully she will come around to it today, I've wasted 3 small servings of it by putting it in her bowl and hours laters seeing it all still sitting there.

Click to expand...

I tried this with my birds, too (just left it out for them) and they did not touch it. Not interested. No thanks. I'll sit on my perch and wait until you feed me seeds. Lol.

What has been working for me, is mixing their old food (Volkmanns seeds, Tropimix, and Zupreem fruit pellets) with the chop so its all mixed and integrated together. It took them a couple days to get used to it, but I think they really like the variety! The seeds mixes and pellets end up sticking to the chop, so it works out well. Right now I have them on two feedings a day, and they'll usually eat 2/3 a cup of food a day between them. So what I do at each feeding is utilize a 1:1 rule, they get roughly half chop and half old food right now. When I first started them on it, I did 1:3 ratio.

I should measure it, but I don't. It's something like 3 teaspoons chop, 1 tablespoon pellets,1 tablespoon seed mix at each feeding.

OMG thank you so much. I printed out your recipe and will be making it for my birds!! So I can mix it with the seed and pellets I have and then I can freeze large amounts or do you only mix it before feeding it to them?

itzjbean said:

Inger said:

I thought I read somewhere that legumes were a no-no? Did it completely make that up?


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

Click to expand...

I'm wondering where you heard, this, because this is not true. Legumes (which includes beans, lentils, chickpeas, etc.) are great for birds and are a great source of protein and fiber. Most of the recipes I have found for parrot chop utilize legumes. Often times they're cooked to soften them up. My female cockatiel, Peach, loves beans The soup mix I used is excellent because it has 9 different kinds of beans in it.

Here are some great resources I've found explaining legumes and their nutrition for birds. One Two Three

Click to expand...

Maybe I read something about uncooked legumes? I don't know. But I am ever thankful to the folks in this forum for good information! I'm going to make a little chop for Bumble- if I start feeding it to her when she's a baby, maybe it will be easier to get her to eat it.


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YUMgrinder said:

OMG thank you so much. I printed out your recipe and will be making it for my birds!! So I can mix it with the seed and pellets I have and then I can freeze large amounts or do you only mix it before feeding it to them?

Click to expand...

Awesome!! I hope they like it!! I keep all separate until I serve. I feed them twice a day (morning and night). I pour the chop in their bowl, then add the dry seeds and pellets from their bags and mix together well. I'll let them eat it from 7am-11am, then take food out and serve them the same again when I get home at 5, then throw what's left away at bedtime. They'll usually get spray millet as a snack to tide them over until dinner. Hope that helps!

It's been over a month since my first batch of CHOP and I'm on my last bag, so I made a new batch last night! I changed the recipe this time to include some different stuff. It took me about 1 hour this time from boiling to bagging.

In this recipe, I used...

- 1 bag of frozen veggies (corn, peas, green beans, carrots)
- 1 1/2 cup broccoli
- 1 red bell pepper
- 1 green bell pepper
- 2 jalapenos
- 1 zucchini, peeled
- 1/3 cup kiwi
- 1/2 cup pineapple
- 1/2 cup strawberries
- 1 1/2 cup 9 bean soup mix
- 1 1/2 cup red quinoa
- 2 cups veggie rotini pasta
- 1/4 cup Flax seed
- 1/2 cup Oats
- 1/4 cup Volkmann's seed mix

Here's some of the ingredients I used, sans the fresh veggies/fruits.

And here's a shot of the mix So satisfying to look at!



A close up..



And all bagged up! This batch made 9 bags, which will probably last a month and a half.



How did I create this, you ask? Here's the steps I followed....

1. I soaked the beans overnight.

2. I cooked the beans, quinoa, and veggie pasta, all separate. Beans cooked for 30 minutes, quinoa for 15 minutes, and pasta 10 minutes.

3. While everything was boiling, I opened and emptied the bag of frozen veggies into two large bowls (half in each).

4. I chopped the broccoli, kiwi, pineapple, strawberry in food processor and threw in the bowls.

5. I peeled the zucchini and chopped in the food processor, then tossed this into the bowls.

6. I cut the peppers by hand and got rid of the innards and seeds, then they all got chopped in the food processor, then into the bowl.

7. After veggie pasta was done boiling, I tossed it in the food processor to make the noodles smaller (I have cockatiels, so they need smaller bite size pieces) and it went into the bowl.

8. After boiling, beans and quinoa went over top the bowls.

9. Dry ingredients (flax seed, oats, seed mix) over top everything.

10. Mix thoroughly. I put 2 cups of chop into each freezer bag. DONE!!


That's it for this month! I'm hoping this has helped someone who has been wanting to venture into CHOP with their birds but possibly doesn't know where to start. It's super easy and doesn't take much time at all to prepare