Food, food, food

[kozykitty]

Gloria has two bowls. In one, she gets a seed/pellet mix. She gets chop in the other. So far her chop consists of bell pepper, jalapeno pepper, edamame, a little quinoa/barley, sweet potato, a couple of blue berries and a little pomegranate. I also give her a little of my breakfast which consists of eggs and spinach. A couple of days ago, I gave her a slice of corn on the cob and she loved that so I put about a 1 inch slice on a skewer for her which she seemed to like. I'm trying to give her more stuff to forage for. This morning I made a skewer with the corn, a chunk of pomegranate and a plain cupcake wrapper wrapped around a shelled cashew. She's acting like she's afraid of it. It was near her chop dish and she wouldn't go near it so I moved it to the other side closer to her dry food dish. Should I just leave it there for the day? I know they can be fearful of new things in their cage, but I don't want her to be miserable!

 

[Mallory]

If it's not causing her too much stress, leaving it in the cage should help her habituate to it and eventually she may even become curious and try it! I have left "scary" toys in or near Greenleaf's cage and she doesn't take long to decide the sketchy new contraptions are actually quite fun. You know how to read your birds, and if they are still comfortably perched and eating, but a bit wary of a new toy, there's no harm done. If the birds are seriously terrified though, I would put it further away from the cage where the bird seems aware of its presence but not fearful. You can move it closer over time.

All of this desensitization will help your bird cope with new items in the future, which is great when you want to introduce foraging toys, new foods, a beak trimming dremel or any of the other crazy new things our birds have to adjust to.

 

[msdeb]

Mine have two bowls also, one for pellets and another for fresh foods. All of my birds like sweet potato, radishes, carrots, broccoli slaw (cabbage, broccoli, carrots) snap peas, whatever is in season at the farmers market (thoroughly washed) squash, cucumbers, tomato, corn on the cob , as a food and a toy, and they like dried fruit ( which is one of my favorite snacks) . Tropical mix is our favorite and we will squabble over the yogurt covered raisons. We like apples and grapes and oranges and pretty much any other fruit you can name. Charlie picks the croutons off my salad and if I have hard-boiled eggs he gets that too, because he is spoiled!

 

[MyBFAAlex]

Hello there! New member here myself. I adopted a 40+ year old Blue Fronted. He was raised on a Macaw Kaytee blend (mostly seed, nuts, biscuits and dried peppers). I have two bowls for him to see which he likes.

The first bowl I do a variety of premium pellets (Harrisons Course, Zupreem Naturals, Zupreem Fruit Blend, Lafeber Macaw Pellets, One Nutri Berries, one nut, one biscuit and random pieces from the Kaytee Blend) I do around 4-6 pellets of each. I left this overnight. It appears he ate mostly the Fruit Blend and the Naturals but did eat pretty much one of each.

The second bowl I do a variety of organic fresh fruits and veggies. I did a 1/2 a handful of baby spring mix, cooked sweet potato, frozen veggie mix (corn, pea, carrot and green beans), apple, orange, strawberry, cucumber and squash. I left that overnight as well. It looked like he ate a little of each as well. Demolished the sweet potato, frozen mix and strawberry.

I arranged the perch to were the pellets are at the 'easy end' to were he can get to the bowl easily. The lower end were he has to reach for the bowl is were I put the yummy berries and seed. I don't know if that's okay or not but it seems to be keeping him busy and entertained. And, well, burn a few calories off! HAHA! Fat amazons...

 

[Giggleagain]

8 months ago I adopted a 9 year old male Amazon (Willie Buttons). His previous owner had written a "book" on his habits. His food consisted of colored Zupreem pellets, lima beans (once a week), dried banana chips (once a week), one almond (once a day), 3 animal crackers (once a day) and yoghurt dipped parrot treats. The owner was quite specific as to the time of day each of these food items had to be offered.

Considering all the other crap she insisted on sharing with me, I threw her notes away and proceeded not following anything Willie had experienced in his life before me.

He never balked at the change. He is eating Roudybush pellets, a large variety of vegetables, (favorites are carrots, corn, cauliflower, red beets and sweet potato). He likes his veggies fresh and raw. In order to get him to eat greens I puree them and use them as "gravy" on a mixture of wild rice, red rice, brown rice, quinoa, barley, lentils, some beans, and the veggies he likes the most. He also eats a large variety of fruit (favorites are mango, papaya, peach, and apple). I make enough rice mix for 2 days and the veggies daily. Willie and the TAG won't eat cooked veggies. The Quakers won't eat them raw, so there's lots of cooking going on in this house. What else is new? I don't mind, my kids were just as finnicky as my fids are now.

Willie loves fish, chicken, lean pork, whole grain bread with pumpkin seeds, couscous, oatmeal... you name it... he loves it. In order to keep him from becoming obese I feed him fruit with oats/couscous in the morning, pellets during the day, and the "big meal" of veggies with the rice mix in the evening. He loves his dinner so much that he will munch for 2 straight hours. Seeds are only offered as reward.