Fruity ParroPops

Take advantage of seasonal fruits.  Puree your parrot's favorites in a blender and pour into an ice cube tray to freeze.  When frozen, pop them out and put into a zip lock bag.  One cube is a great treat and in the summer, our birds even like it frozen!  (Remember to remove fresh fruit within a couple of hours to avoid attracting bugs or worse, having it spoil!)

Soft Food Mix For Eclectus

This is a nutritious mixture of foods relished by all Eclectus from babies to adults, including breeders who feed it to their babies in the nest.

Soak overnight half a large stockpot of dry shelled whole corn or popcorn.  Bring to a boil and cook over low heat the next morning for several hours, or until the corn is plumped and soft in the middle.  Water will need to be added several times as it is absorbed by the corn, which more than doubles in volume.

Also, soak overnight your choice of dried beans. Eclectus seem to favor garbanzo beans (chick peas) and you can also use kidney, cranberry, pinto, lima, northern, chili, black beans or others.  Cook the next morning for an hour or less or until "al dente".

Cook one or two boxes of Uncle Ben's Original Brown Rice or a large bag of brown rice for approximately thirty minutes.

Optional foods to be cooked with the brown rice are raisins, currants, shelled sunflower seeds, shelled pumpkin seeds, wheatberries, barley, whole oats, pasta, nuts, and cinnamon, cloves or ginger for added flavor.  For Eclectus, I usually include chopped sweet potato for the Vitamin A content.

Combine all ingredients in a large container or clean sink.  Mix and allow to cool.  Seal in plastic bags in daily portions, press flat for faster thawing, and freeze.  To serve, thaw and bring to a boil.  Allow to cool before feeding.  For faster cooling, add frozen garden peas or individually frozen fruits, such as cranberries, which act as mini-ice cubes.  The heat from the mix will thaw the peas or fruits.

Do not leave this mixture in the feeding dishes long enough to spoil.  This mixture is very similar to the popular prepared ones, but is much less expensive and can be tailored to the individual taste preferences of your birds.

Carolyn Swicegood
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Parrot Pancakes

Sunday is family day at our house and everyone gets to share in breakfast.  We typically make pancakes (use you favorite human variety pancake as your base) and then we get crazy with the batter for the birds.  Pick a couple goodies that you have readily available like ripened banana, cooked sweet potato or carrots (organic baby food is an option), unsweetened, natural apple sauce, raisins, canned pumpkin (not pumpkin pie mix), cinnamon, pumpkin seeds, red pepper flakes, fresh chopped fruit or nuts, JUST Fruit and/or JUST Veggies.  The pancake batter is just the start for all the goodies you add!  Put onto a heated, skillet that has been sprayed with a vegetable spray, cook, allow to cool and share the goodies!  Your parrot will LOVE sharing breakfast with you (and you don't even have to tell them that it's actually GOOD for them too!).

Pinecones

Pinecones are a great way to add foraging, shredding and chewing fun to your parrot's life!  Find clean pinecones (preferably away from car pollution and free of mold or mildew).  If necessary you can wash them and air dry.  Give them free choice to your parrots as a foot toy, tie it to the cage with vegetable tanned leather strips or natural sisal or put a couple into a lunch bag, twist the top and hang in their house to encourage foraging.  You can also dress them up by spreading some peanut butter on them and rolling in seeds.  Plain or dressed, our parrots' love pine cones!

Cheater's Muffins

4 boxes of packaged corn muffin mix

1 cup of applesauce

4 eggs (wash and dry the eggs, put into bowl and crush the shells)*

1 can of pumpkin (not pumpkin pie mix, plain pumpkin)

1-2 Tbl of cinnamon

Mix it all together, let it rest for a few minutes so it can rise, spray your mini muffin pans with a vegetable spray and fill the cups about half full, bake at 400 degrees for about 15 minutes.  Pop them out of the pan to cool, freezing those that won't be used within 48 hrs.
 

* Note: You can substitute Egg Beaters for whole eggs

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Banana Birdie Treats

1-1/2 cups mashed ripe bananas
1 teaspoon cinnamon
3 cups oats
1/2 cup chopped nuts (almonds, walnuts, pecans)
1/4 cup applesauce

Combine all ingredients and stir thoroughly.  Drop by small spoonfuls onto an ungreased baking sheet.  Press flat with a fork.  Bake at 350F degrees for 15 minutes.  Cool on a wire rack. Store in airtight containers.  Makes about 20.
 

Hint ... A GREAT find at Walmart.  A package of frozen sweet potato patties ... 16/2 inch patties for about $1.48.  All you have to do is zap them for 40 seconds in the microwave!  They taste delicious and all my birds love them, from my cockatiel to my amazon.

Christine Byrd

Macaw Mash

Take four of five medium to large sweet potatoes, peel them, and cut into quarter inch slices.  Put the slices into a large pan with a TIGHT fitting lid with one to one and a half cups of water.  {The taters are going to be steamed and not boiled.  This prevents the water soluble beta carotene from being wasted.  The beta carotene is essential to our FIDs and this is the primary reason for feeding this concoction.} Add to this cinnamon to taste (one or two teaspoons), pure vanilla extract to taste (again, one or two teaspoons) and if you desire a can of pumpkin. (Make the pumpkin is low in sodium.) Bring to a slow boil and place the lid on the pan. Continue to steam for about 45 minutes.  Don’t get hung up on the time element.  Simply continue to steam until the top slices are fork tender.

Remove the taters from the burner and allow them to cool to room temperature (more or less).  This will prevent the eggs from cooking prematurely when you add them.  When cooled, put into a food processor (taters and steaming fluid) and process until a smooth consistency is reached.  (I’m too lazy to use a processor because I have to clean it, so I use an old fashioned potato masher.)  Add two eggs, a cup of chopped pecans, a cup of chopped walnuts, a small can of crushed pineapple (juice and all), a cup of soaked raisins (note: raisins are coated with a sulfur compound as an anti fungicide when they are produced.  It is easily removed by putting the raisins in a pan of boiling water for about an hour.  You need not continue to boil the water, just add the raisins and remove from the burner), and mix well. 

 I’ve started adding a small bag of frozen chopped mixed veggies with good success.  Turn the mixture into a large baking pan that’s been coated with Pam, or vegetable oil, or peanut oil, or butter, etc.  I use Pam as it adds less fat/oil to the stuff.   At this point you can put pumpkin seeds on top of the mixture, a very good practice.

Bake for 45 minutes in a 350 F oven.  This makes a lot but it freezes well.  Simply put one or two days supply in a baggie and freeze it.

Patricia Bigbie

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