Help! Max won’t eat anything!

[TiredOldMan]

All rice should be cooked

 

[charmedbyekkie]

100% do brown rice cooked. Brown rice (and red rice) has more nutrients than white rice. They're all the same, just processed differently. And white rice is processed to the point of less minerals.

Cairo loves rice - like Max, if he could just eat rice, he would. Including conducting starvation strikes for a full day (I felt so bad that I gave in at dinner time). At first, I coaxed him to eat some fresh chop by itself just by sitting and pretending to eat his food and really enjoy it (I was making all sorts of head-bobs and crazy 'yummy' sounds); it did work for a bit.

Now I cook the rice to be more like Teochew porridge (the rice are still individual pieces, just softer and more open, and it's a little watery as well). I add the rice and some of the porridge water to his fresh chop. The fresh chop sticks to the rice (or it might be the other way around), and the porridge water coats the fresh chop as well. He loves this fresh chop mix.

That being said, I do have a past post about being safe with rice (Cairo got a yeast infection because his human was making his food human-level safe, not parrot-level safe). So! If you're keeping rice in the fridge for Max, then when you reheat it, be sure to stir and boil it again (you can do this in the microwave - high heat for 3+ minutes) before you add it to his fresh chop each serving. For me, since his breakfast often sits out for a while, I only add in rice for dinner. (Breakfast gets a tiny bit of fruit added instead of rice)

Apart from integrating rice, you can also try stringing up food like toys. I've hung bok choi from his cage - he loves tearing it apart and eating it. I've put up a string of chilli padi - he enjoys finding the the seeds inside. These foods, I then integrated into his chop; I kept them roughly the same size at first to help him recognise. Now I process them all the same.

 

[reeisconfused]

100% do brown rice cooked. Brown rice (and red rice) has more nutrients than white rice. They're all the same, just processed differently. And white rice is processed to the point of less minerals.

Cairo loves rice - like Max, if he could just eat rice, he would. Including conducting starvation strikes for a full day (I felt so bad that I gave in at dinner time). At first, I coaxed him to eat some fresh chop by itself just by sitting and pretending to eat his food and really enjoy it (I was making all sorts of head-bobs and crazy 'yummy' sounds); it did work for a bit.

Now I cook the rice to be more like Teochew porridge (the rice are still individual pieces, just softer and more open, and it's a little watery as well). I add the rice and some of the porridge water to his fresh chop. The fresh chop sticks to the rice (or it might be the other way around), and the porridge water coats the fresh chop as well. He loves this fresh chop mix.

That being said, I do have a past post about being safe with rice (Cairo got a yeast infection because his human was making his food human-level safe, not parrot-level safe). So! If you're keeping rice in the fridge for Max, then when you reheat it, be sure to stir and boil it again (you can do this in the microwave - high heat for 3+ minutes) before you add it to his fresh chop each serving. For me, since his breakfast often sits out for a while, I only add in rice for dinner. (Breakfast gets a tiny bit of fruit added instead of rice)

Apart from integrating rice, you can also try stringing up food like toys. I've hung bok choi from his cage - he loves tearing it apart and eating it. I've put up a string of chilli padi - he enjoys finding the the seeds inside. These foods, I then integrated into his chop; I kept them roughly the same size at first to help him recognise. Now I process them all the same.

Thank you SO much, this was beyond helpful to me!