Gerber baby food?

[AkridChaos]

It was a thought that came to me while eating applesauce. My birds are such children when it comes to eating vegetables. It’s been a real struggle. They see it, they avoid it, no matter what tricks I try. They just know it’s something that doesn’t belong in their food when I try the one little piece in their other food method. I was actually curious if using a Gerber baby food type of mashed up vegetable could help, if it’s safe to give them. Would save me the effort of mashing it up myself like that and mixing a small amount onto pellets. But I’m not sure if there’s preservatives or other chemicals in it or not. Never bought them myself as I don’t have actual kids. And if it is safe to give them, maybe it’s a great idea to help others with their extremely picky vegetable resisting fids. Would be a simple matter of mixing it into something they’ll eat. Millet maybe if your fids won’t eat it with pellets. Just a thought, to help those who really cringe at the effort of turning their own vegetables into fine paste (lol). Not that we can’t, it would just save us an extra step, be very convenient and easy to do, provided it’s safe to give them. Awaiting everyone’s thoughts and input, primarily from experienced parents with baby food and the ingredients list.

 

[GaleriaGila]

Now THIS is thinking outside the... the cage!
I would guess that any safe veggies by a reputable manufacturer should be fine.
Let's see what others think.
Meanwhile, I'm going to Google me some Gerber ingredients!

EDIT after Googling
Well, they look pretty pure!
And there's a range of textures from smooth to chunkier.

 

[ChristaNL]

Yup. mash works!
(just be carefull not to trigger the whole courtship-thing: warm mushy stuf are the boxes of chocolates & red roses of the parrotworld)


Japie is a pellet-only kind of guy.
He even refused millet, nutriberries etc. till he got some competition (Appie) in the house.

He will very reluctantly taste things I eat - and mashed up vegies are imho opinion a great way to get them used to a flavour before tackeling the extra challenge of texture.

Can you imagene a parrot who wil *not* touch a piece of banana?
After 3 years of offering it every chance I get he (only sometimes) will lick some mashed up banana from my fingers - once! And he is done for the next couple of weeks. The other two will kill for a piece of that fruit!

(This is the same parrot that wil demolish a complete pomegranate in minutes!)


Any kind of veg. works, if not: encase in mashed potato; sweet potato or the regular kind will be acceptable, as long as it has no structure whatsoever.
(Sorry no recepies: just boil and pulp it)

 

[Scott]

Absolutely, give a quality low or no-salt babyfood a try. I've done this for sick birds, experimenting with several flavors as conduit for medicine.

If your birds regularly eat applesauce, a less costly method is to purchase "natural, unsweetened" applesauce. Just apples, water, and ascorbic acid as preservative.

 

[wrench13]

Yup, Salty gets baby food added to his chop some nights, to give a bit of different taste or texture. Mix things up a bit. Some nights we will pulverize some pellets and mixed those in too. I like the idea of using the babyfood to mush up the pellets too. Gotta try that, Thanks!

 

[EllenD]

Absolutely! Wonderful idea!

Most-all brands of regular veggie and fruit baby foods contain nothing at all except fresh veggies, fruits, and water. That's it! No extra sugar added, no salt at all, no preservatives...And the best part is that most brands do not cook or heat-up the veggies or fruits before they puree them, they simply blend them up with water, and that's it...So none of the vitamins or minerals are "cooked-out" of the veggies or fruit.

It's a very regular thing for Bearded Dragon owners who have sick Dragons (unfortunately this usually applies to Dragons with Metabolic Bone Disease due to them getting inadequate or no UVB lighting at all) that refuse to eat any live insects, fruits, veggies, greens, pellets, etc., to make purees to syringe-feed to their Dragons several times a day, so that they not only get some nutrition, calories, protein, etc., but so they can also give them their much-needed daily-doses of Calcium and Multi-Vitamin powder. So you choose your Dragon's favorite fresh veggies/fruits and buy a few jars of Baby Food (Butternut Squash is usually the Dragon's favorite!), put it in a blender, add a pinch of Calcium powder, a pinch of their Multi-Vitamin powder, and I like to add some commercial Bearded Dragon Pellets as well, because Baby Food doesn't contain much protein at all, and then blend it up, then add unflavored Pedialyte to get the correct consistency/thickness, and then you can hand-feed it to them with an oral syringe. They actually really like it and usually willingly lick a ton of it off of their snout if you keep dropping there...

I've also used different Baby Foods over the years with baby birds that I bred. It helps quite a bit with the babies that have a bit of trouble transitioning from the formula to solid food in-general, and the ones that absolutely refuse to go near fresh veggies. Some of them will hate fresh Broccoli or Carrots with a passion and will actually run-away from them when offered, but then they lap-up the same flavor of Baby Food like it's crack...

So yes, this is a great method of getting stubborn birds to eat fresh veggies and fresh fruit!

***Just always be sure to read the full ingredient list on the back of the Baby Food jar/container to make sure there's no added sugar, salt, preservatives, or any other bad stuff added...Most Baby Food doesn't contain anything at all except the veggies, fruit, and water, and if you stick to Gerber or Beechnut (or the generic store copies) you should be fine, those are the ones I've always purchased for my baby birds and my Dragon...

 

[YUMgrinder]

just gotta make sure the sugar and salt levels are very low. an "all natural" type.

 

[noodles123]

just have to make sure its not fortified and watch for added salt/citric acid.

 

[Ira7]

Don’t get too excited yet. Did you try it since your original post?

If your bird won’t eat fresh steamed sweet potato, chances are he ain’t gonna like it in baby food form either. But you never know.

My guy eats everything anyway, and I would still love to use baby food for the convenience, but I’m not thrilled with giving him stuff as a mush. Like fresh snap peas...there’s work for him here but also joy he gets out of dissecting a pod that he can’t get from a jar.

Still, I like the option.

 

[bug_n_flock]

I've used veggie and fruit baby foods when weaning hand fed budgies in the past.

 

[noodles123]

I keep coming back to this- but the citric acid levels can really be quite harmful if fed as a main diet, so use caution.