Birdie Mash

[dejablue315]

So since I finally have my new 'tiel, Rocco, I wanted to try and make a bird mash. He has been eating his food. I bought they Kaytee Cockatiel foraging mix, so it has pellets, different mixture of seeds. He seems to favor the sunflower seeds a lot. I think next time i need to buy food I'm going to try the Volkman seed mixture. I found out the birdstore I got him from carries it. I will try to introduce some veggies soon after a few days. I found this recipe for a simple boiled egg and cooked rice. I do know that it isn't good to give your too much egg yolk. My question was after I make this, do you guys think it would be ok to put it in the fridge? or is it better to put it in the freezer. I wasn't sure about putting a boiled egg in the freezer though o.O I want to try some type of mash, but since I only have him, I want to try and get a recipe that I could use and keep it in the freezer or something. I don't want to over make and have more than half of it go bad since I only have one bird. I did see another thread on here about bird food and stuff. Thanks for you input!

[Marrie]

Eggs should be OK for a few days (2-3) maximum in the fridge, but I would rather just cook one and share it with the bird if you want to serve egg... reheated eggs taste gross, dry out and probably won't be as appetizing. I am not too sure on freezing them, never tried. My preferred bird mash is something like beak appetit - anise seed, brown rice, peas, corn, carrots, cinnamon, etc and you can roll it into balls and freeze them. Take out one ball at a time and put into microwave for 10s or so to thaw. Serve. Lasts a few months frozen like that. You want to keep the carbs to a minimum, but the rice helps entice them to peck at it. If you don't want to make your own, beak appetit came back into business or there is another company called krazy korn that makes a bird mash. Dr Harvey also has a cookable bird mix.

You can also try something like birdy bread - you can either buy it commercial or make your own (there are a bunch of recipes for it if you do a quick google, pick the one you think your tiel would like the best). It has eggs in the recipes, but you can also add seeds, veggies, fruits and things like bee pollen for extra nutrients. Birdy bread is something even seed junkies and picky eaters tend to go for.

And, of course, sprouting is a good way to make a tasty treat for them as well. If you are like me and suck at getting things to grow, you can buy sprouting kits for about $16 that will do it all for you and you just add the stuff.

For seed mixes, I feed volkmans no-sunflower mix. I find the sunflower mixes for tiels have way too many of them.

[boomer girl]

Volkman seed mixes are a great mix and I know my lovebird ate it his entire life and if I offered another brand he refused to eat. Even though he was a Lovebird he ate the Cockatiel with no sunflower seed mix as well, he loved it!

I was just looking at a bird rescue site in San Francisco and they have this Vegetable and Grain mash that looks awfully good as well. http://mickaboo.org/sites/default/fi...nMixRecipe.pdf

[dejablue315]

Thank you both Marrie and boomer girl! I'm going to end up trying both of your ideas!

[maxollie]

I would also suggest that you limit sunflower seeds to a couple or three times a week at max, because they are quite fatty in nature, and from what I've read, too much fat can contribute to liver disease in birds.