Is there such thing as TOO MUCH chop?

[hiriki]

Lol, as the title says.

Most of my birds only touch my chop if I sprinkle some safflower seeds in and even then they just eat around the vegetables. I've altered the recipe a few times but at this point I'm just hoping they'll realize it's food at some point and come around. But ONE of my birds.... empties the bowl.

I pre-portion my chop in ice cube trays, and I realized a few days ago that one "cube" of chop is probably a full 1/4 cup. I realized this after noticing that the bird who empties her bowl has been eating much less pellets.

My biggest concern is that I don't know enough about bird nutrition to "balance" a chop... from memory, my last batch had: broccoli, carrots, snap peas, bell peppers, cauliflower, beet, sweet potato, mango, peach, banana, and brown rice.

Since the pellets are supposedly a balanced diet, I'm just worried if my chop adventure is backfiring and making her diet LESS healthy. Any thoughts?

 

[BirdyBee]

Nah, it's ok. Unless your bird is having 80-90% of their diet veggies, I wouldn't be concerned. Your chop appears to have a lot of variety. If it was a chop with low variety, then I'd be concerned.

TBH I don't think pellets are as balanced as they say they are. No bird should be eating a high-pellet diet. JMO.

 

[hiriki]

That makes me feel better. Now if only I could get the rest of my birds to touch the fresh food. If she could share just an ounce of her enthusiasm for veggies with the rest of the flock I'd be happy... lol.

Iirc from other threads where you talk about what you feed, you mix grains into your pellets right? I could be totally remembering wrong but if you do I'm curious what grains you use.

 

[BirdyBee]

yes, I often mix dry grains, dry flowers, and herbs/spices for mental enrichment.

I use barley, oats, quinoa, buckwheat, etc.

 

[HeatherG]

I would add—if your bird loses too much weight and becomes very thin, that’s too much chop.

Kind of like how dieting people try to add in salads and vegetables to crowd out potatoes, bread, fatty foods. They are hoping to lose weight.

Many of our pet parrots are too heavy and lots of chop is really desirable.

What I’ve read is to concentrate on dark geeen leafy vegetables, orange or yellow fleshed vegetables, and berries. Sprouts are also amazing! Many birds like corn beans and peas but those are carb heavy.
But they’re a good way to start getting veggies into the bird.