Pellets not available, best alternative?

[GambotheGreyt]

Hi all,
We live in a location that there are no pellets available for parrots. Basic fruits and vegetables are available as are dried options (for example, beets, carrots, etc). Additionally I can buy puree without added sugar. Basic nuts are also available (but whole in the shell fresh peanuts are not).
There are seed mixes and more seed mixes whose base is sunflower seeds.
Can anyone recommend a base staple mix i can prepare for my young Congo African Grey (calcium is important)?
Thank you in advance for any help.

 

[Aneha]

plain sugarless yogurt

 

[SailBoat]

So, what region of this World do you live?? Unless you live outside of North America and as a result the primary delivery services (including the Postal Service) does not deliver to! Everywhere has Internet purchase and delivery.

Reason for you to provided your regional location is very simple, as each region has a cross-section of natural seeds, grasses, grains and tree based nuts that grow in your area!

NOTE: Wild Bird Seed is NOT recommended for Parrots and especially if its base is SunFlower seed and/or corn.

 

[clark_conure]

Not for nothing not a grey but my conures dont stoop from eating all of my human food. Most parrots can handle anything healthy we eat. Try eating a hamburger yep you might get half of it.

 

[GambotheGreyt]

So, what region of this World do you live?? Unless you live outside of North America and as a result the primary delivery services (including the Postal Service) does not deliver to! Everywhere has Internet purchase and delivery.

Reason for you to provided your regional location is very simple, as each region has a cross-section of natural seeds, grasses, grains and tree based nuts that grow in your area!

NOTE: Wild Bird Seed is NOT recommended for Parrots and especially if its base is SunFlower seed and/or corn.

I live in Siberia. The pellets that are "available " in this area are manufactured in Belgium and in Italy (i have not been able to get a response from either to find out how I can purchase their products). Due to activity in this area shipping into or out of the country has its issues. I have checked two countries and there is no availability of either product, despite shipping. Sure i can work around shipping from the US for an extremely pretty penny.

Where i live, we have birch trees, potatoes, carrots, and beets, oh and apples! Fruits and vegetables are imported.

 

[Vampiric_Conure]

You won't need pellets. Sprouted sunflower seeds and other sprouted grains should be easy enough for you to do. You can make a chop with the carrots, beets and other fruits/veggies. I find plain oatmeal makes for a good homemade birdy bread. You can add baby food puree to it and bake it. I use pancake mix when I make birdy bread because I am LAZY, lol! The birdy bread you can add an egg complete with crushed shell, and it should be okay for calcium. Carrots are high in Vitamin A, so you won't have to worry too much about vitamin A deficiency.

Hopefully others will have more suggestions .

 

[SailBoat]

Well, Siberia is not at the top of the World delivery services target markets. Fully understand your difficulty in getting Pellets.

Prior to the transformation of Western diets to prepared foods, our local grown and harvested foods was the foundation of our diets and during those days, our Parrots eat what we eat and did very well!!

Clearly, some foods need to be limited or not provided. Normally, what is not good for Humans is not good for Parrots. Meats provided need to be cooked. Chicken is better than Beef. Peanuts (shelled or not) are problematic for Parrots and should be avoided. The same is true for Sunflower 'seeds', however, 'sprouted sunflower seeds' are great. Near all tree grown nuts are good.

Vampiric_Conure post provides a way of making Birdy Bread, but you can use your normal recipe for pancakes!

Enjoy shopping locally!!

 

[GambotheGreyt]

Well, Siberia is not at the top of the World delivery services target markets. Fully understand your difficulty in getting Pellets.

Prior to the transformation of Western diets to prepared foods, our local grown and harvested foods was the foundation of our diets and during those days, our Parrots eat what we eat and did very well!!

Clearly, some foods need to be limited or not provided. Normally, what is not good for Humans is not good for Parrots. Meats provided need to be cooked. Chicken is better than Beef. Peanuts (shelled or not) are problematic for Parrots and should be avoided. The same is true for Sunflower 'seeds', however, 'sprouted sunflower seeds' are great. Near all tree grown nuts are good.

Vampiric_Conure post provides a way of making Birdy Bread, but you can use your normal recipe for pancakes!

Enjoy shopping locally!!

Thanks for the ideas. It's a bit of a struggle with a parrot that wasn't abundance weaned and was only given sunflower seeds and apples. They were "afraid" to give him too many foods. His cage also had no toys.

I'm finding that letting "daddy" feed him the new foods after him seeing him eating them to be the most effective way to introduce new foods.

Thanks again.

 

[GambotheGreyt]

Well, Siberia is not at the top of the World delivery services target markets. Fully understand your difficulty in getting Pellets.

Prior to the transformation of Western diets to prepared foods, our local grown and harvested foods was the foundation of our diets and during those days, our Parrots eat what we eat and did very well!!

Clearly, some foods need to be limited or not provided. Normally, what is not good for Humans is not good for Parrots. Meats provided need to be cooked. Chicken is better than Beef. Peanuts (shelled or not) are problematic for Parrots and should be avoided. The same is true for Sunflower 'seeds', however, 'sprouted sunflower seeds' are great. Near all tree grown nuts are good.

Vampiric_Conure post provides a way of making Birdy Bread, but you can use your normal recipe for pancakes!

Enjoy shopping locally!!

Ah you said to enjoy shopping local... well as a misplaced American it is not the most pleasurable experience due to limited selection. I am looking forward to summer though to feed goodies from the garden!

 

[BirdyBee]

Hi all,
We live in a location that there are no pellets available for parrots. Basic fruits and vegetables are available as are dried options (for example, beets, carrots, etc). Additionally I can buy puree without added sugar. Basic nuts are also available (but whole in the shell fresh peanuts are not).
There are seed mixes and more seed mixes whose base is sunflower seeds.
Can anyone recommend a base staple mix i can prepare for my young Congo African Grey (calcium is important)?
Thank you in advance for any help.

Hi,
You can try looking if there are grains available in your area, such as oats or barley. If you can find them whole that's be great because then you you can sprout or cook them. Both options work. You can even feed it dry but a lot of birds don't like it that way.
Eggs is also a great choice if you have that available as it contains many different nutrients that are hard to find elsewhere. Eggsshells can be finely crushed as well and fed for calcium(make sure it's clean beforehand and crushed very fine before feeding)

Hope this helps

 

[GambotheGreyt]

Hi all,
We live in a location that there are no pellets available for parrots. Basic fruits and vegetables are available as are dried options (for example, beets, carrots, etc). Additionally I can buy puree without added sugar. Basic nuts are also available (but whole in the shell fresh peanuts are not).
There are seed mixes and more seed mixes whose base is sunflower seeds.
Can anyone recommend a base staple mix i can prepare for my young Congo African Grey (calcium is important)?
Thank you in advance for any help.

Update:
So I did find a way to order products from the US.. the company isn't the most reputable, but I received my products (at an inflated price of course!).

So we are now in possession of 5 pounds of Harrison's High Potency Coarse. Now the question is... will he eat it? I have never had a parrot eat it before (but I have never tried to convert over to Harrisons from Lafebers). My current conversion will be from sunflower seeds (never was my choice).

So, wish us luck!

BTW, Harrison's smells like peanuts. Gambo loves to shred peanut shells, but not eat the peanuts.

For other overseas (but probably not Australia) members who cannot buy pellets, contact me privately and I will share the company that I bought from.

 

[BirdyBee]

Update:
So I did find a way to order products from the US.. the company isn't the most reputable, but I received my products (at an inflated price of course!).

So we are now in possession of 5 pounds of Harrison's High Potency Coarse. Now the question is... will he eat it? I have never had a parrot eat it before (but I have never tried to convert over to Harrisons from Lafebers). My current conversion will be from sunflower seeds (never was my choice).

So, wish us luck!

One thing I did to convert my birds was to soften the pellets with warm water and then mixing in the seeds. He might not eat it at first but he will taste small amounts of the pellets. Gradually decrease the seed amount until you see him eating the pellets. Then you can start giving dry pellets(do about 50/50 dry and wet pellets for a day or two and then you can give only dry pellets)

This might not work for you but it worked for me so I thought I might just share it

 

[SailBoat]

I have never bought into the only pellets diet as reality states that pellets do not exist in their natural range! Plus, veggies are a very important part of their natural diet as is a quality cross-section of natural seeds and grains. (clearly not the cheap wild bird seed), targeting Human grade selections, only.

For adding pellets as a supplement to a healthy diet, we have used Harrison's High Potency Coarse with our younger Parrots and when a bit older switched to the Life Time formula. As far as converting from one pellet to another brand; we have course crushed the Pellet and added it the existing Pellet, which allowed the finer grains to get scooped-up and eaten allow with the old brand. over the next month, the about of older Pellets would be reduced and replaced with the newer Pellet.

Enjoy.