Rice - Be Careful and Cook!

charmedbyekkie

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Cairo the Ekkie!
This morning started with Cairo passing very watery and off-colour (for his diet). I thought maybe it was because, for dinner the night before, I added French Beans into this new chop mix and added too much water to the rice. However, by the afternoon, I was quite sure something was wrong - at times, he seemed to not even have control of his, what I believed to be, diarrhoea.

I immediately booked an appointment (at the second and last avian vet in this country - separate post later for that) for the evening. Long story short (being that he hates pooing inside his carrier, so they had to give us a room):

Yeast.

I talked to the vet about his diet and how I am a poo-gazer, as we in the forum jokingly say. We went over how I prepare his food. Then she talked to me about the rice and how to properly prepare it. I had precooked his rice and kept it in the coldest part of the fridge. She said that was fine, but that when reheating, I need to absolutely make it piping hot (then let cool down to feed him) in order to kill off the yeast then stir (she also said not to heat up his veggies, so he can get all the nutrients). His digestive tract apparently started fermenting the rice yeast, causing his problems. Her tech quickly came in with the faecalysis results, which confirmed the yeast hypothesis.

So now we're home with itraconazole as well as probiotic bacillus subtilis (she recommends priobiotics as just part of his standard diet, one dosage every other day).

TL;DR
Cook your rice! And recook it when reheating!
 

C3mommy

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Mar 14, 2018
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So can you just take it straight from the fridge and serve without heating? Or does it need to be heated?
This morning started with Cairo passing very watery and off-colour (for his diet). I thought maybe it was because, for dinner the night before, I added French Beans into this new chop mix and added too much water to the rice. However, by the afternoon, I was quite sure something was wrong - at times, he seemed to not even have control of his, what I believed to be, diarrhoea.

I immediately booked an appointment (at the second and last avian vet in this country - separate post later for that) for the evening. Long story short (being that he hates pooing inside his carrier, so they had to give us a room):

Yeast.

I talked to the vet about his diet and how I am a poo-gazer, as we in the forum jokingly say. We went over how I prepare his food. Then she talked to me about the rice and how to properly prepare it. I had precooked his rice and kept it in the coldest part of the fridge. She said that was fine, but that when reheating, I need to absolutely make it piping hot (then let cool down to feed him) in order to kill off the yeast then stir (she also said not to heat up his veggies, so he can get all the nutrients). His digestive tract apparently started fermenting the rice yeast, causing his problems. Her tech quickly came in with the faecalysis results, which confirmed the yeast hypothesis.

So now we're home with itraconazole as well as probiotic bacillus subtilis (she recommends priobiotics as just part of his standard diet, one dosage every other day).

TL;DR
Cook your rice! And recook it when reheating!

Sent from my LGMP450 using Tapatalk
 
OP
charmedbyekkie

charmedbyekkie

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May 24, 2018
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Cairo the Ekkie!
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So can you just take it straight from the fridge and serve without heating? Or does it need to be heated?
This morning started with Cairo passing very watery and off-colour (for his diet). I thought maybe it was because, for dinner the night before, I added French Beans into this new chop mix and added too much water to the rice. However, by the afternoon, I was quite sure something was wrong - at times, he seemed to not even have control of his, what I believed to be, diarrhoea.

I immediately booked an appointment (at the second and last avian vet in this country - separate post later for that) for the evening. Long story short (being that he hates pooing inside his carrier, so they had to give us a room):

Yeast.

I talked to the vet about his diet and how I am a poo-gazer, as we in the forum jokingly say. We went over how I prepare his food. Then she talked to me about the rice and how to properly prepare it. I had precooked his rice and kept it in the coldest part of the fridge. She said that was fine, but that when reheating, I need to absolutely make it piping hot (then let cool down to feed him) in order to kill off the yeast then stir (she also said not to heat up his veggies, so he can get all the nutrients). His digestive tract apparently started fermenting the rice yeast, causing his problems. Her tech quickly came in with the faecalysis results, which confirmed the yeast hypothesis.

So now we're home with itraconazole as well as probiotic bacillus subtilis (she recommends priobiotics as just part of his standard diet, one dosage every other day).

TL;DR
Cook your rice! And recook it when reheating!

Sent from my LGMP450 using Tapatalk

Need to cook again! Based on my experience with sourdough starter and water kefir, yeast happily grows (though slowly) in the fridge. So you shouldn't serve cold. But what I had been doing was just reheating in the microwave for a minute or two. She advised to make it even hotter than that - I know that yeast dies at around 65 C.
 

Owlet

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Oct 27, 2016
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would the same apply with whole wheat noodles put into chop?? or oats?
 

noodles123

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Jul 11, 2018
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Umbrella Cockatoo- 15? years old..I think?
Good to know- I usually reheat my bird's oatmeal until it is luke-warm...I do feed her probiotics, but I have always wondered about this, and your story confirms my concerns. That sucks, as heating thoroughly really takes a toll on my bird (and my patience), because cooling is a process. Argh...
 

ChristaNL

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Actually: a fridge does not put anything "in stasis" it just slows down the decomp/decay a lot!
That is why we've all been taught to cool down surplus cooked foods as fast as possible, save the leftovers max. 3 days (a.k.a 2 nights) and always reheat like crazy before consuming.
 

LeslieA

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Microwave????
Something else to consider is making sure it's not white rice. No grains are better than processed grains.
 
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charmedbyekkie

charmedbyekkie

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Cairo the Ekkie!
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I don't know about whole wheat noodles and oats/oatmeal. I know people make rice wine, which means that clearly can ferment. The others, I would assume whole wheat could also ferment since I've made a whole wheat sourdough starter before. Oatmeal - really don't know.

But regarding the microwave, only 1-2 minutes doesn't work (that's what I had been doing). She said that it really needs to be hot (and I thought that my reheating was really hot). I'm almost tempted to buy a tiny pot for me to reboil the rice each time. So yep, crazy reheat if you're reheating. It might just be that he'll eat rice when we do, just so I feel safer about it.
 

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