Puddle Jumping in DCSomewhere on this blog, I've mentioned that I feed Bug something called "pellet cookies". It's basically ground up parrot food, nuts, flour, egg, and juice baked into cookies. Bug loves them but we're all out.
I'm planning to make more tonight but we're also trying something new. It's a prepared birdie bread mix called Pro Grow. It has quite a fan club of parrot owners who think the stuff is much better than pellets. There's a whole big controversy about pellets where some parrot breeders/owners think pellets are terrible and the pellet companies think they are perfect nutrition. I'm not convinced either way.
Pellet companies are out to make money, yes, but several of them were started by vets saddened to see parrots dying of malnutrition, or that's the story anyway. And, a number of the people trashing pellets are pushing their own products, granted, unlike pellets, few alternative products claim to be a complete diet. One guy from England who prefers seed/table food+supplements makes an interesting argument that half the problem is that they do have to be 90% of the diet or the parrot won't get the necessary vitamins and most breeders in the U.S. don't do that. The person who makes Itty Bitty Birdie Bites has a nice list of links trashing pellets here.
My take on it is that Bug eating only pellets would be comparable to me eating only grapenuts (visually, too). I could subsist on grapenuts. I might even get all the recommended daily allowances for the major vitamins. But, I'd be bored silly and would be missing out on nutrients only available from fresh food. However, I do eat a lot of grapenuts, practically a bowl every day. So, Bug gets pellets and fresh food and seeds and sprouts and baked goods . . . . I try to mix it up to keep her flexible.
Back to the Pro-Grow: This stuff is kind of weird. You can't really see from the picture, but it's greenish. That's probably the spirolina.The little red dots are a pellet I added (Can you hear the anti pellet people gasp?) for texture variety. I had intended to make two batches, one with peas and one with strawberries. But, I figured that by the time the peas/strawberries, which start out frozen, get baked for 90 minutes at 350 degrees, get frozen again because it will take Bug six months to eat a whole loaf, and then get re-thawed when I'm ready for it, it's probably not much of a nutritional supplement. Plus, adding a few cups of the fruity pellets was just really easy.
Man, I hope Bug likes it because the smallest package, 2lbs, makes a heck of a lot of birdie bread. I'll keep you posted.
Okay, I had to share this next picture because it happened while I was typing the entry. This morning, I left the bird food sitting onto the china cabinet instead of putting it inside. As I typed a blog entry about bird food, Bug flew over to the china cabinet to investigate. When she couldn't break into the container holding the "Just Fruit", of which she distinctly prefers the small berries, she tried to stare her way into the jar holding the oat groats.
It worked! I opened them up and gave her a few. . . . . . after I took the picture. (Later, I even gave her a berry.) Click on the picture for a close up a Bug.
We knew it was only a matter of time before Bug out-smarted us.
Today she really wanted what Paul was eating . . . . in the kitchen. So, she hopped to a chair and considered her options. Then, she flew under the curtain that we use to separate the kitchen from the dining room.
hmmm.
It's a good thing she's cute. Unfortunately, that's not going to help her as she gives us imploring looks from inside the cage whenever anyone is cooking anything and, with four adults in the house, that can be often.
We haven't been all that careful about putting Bug into her cage when folks do little things in the kitchen, like make tea, as long as someone is watching Bug. Guess that's gotta' change. (BTW- there's always someone watching Bug or she is in her cage.)
On another note, we discovered that the only thing necessary to make this basket interesting (It's been ignored for well over a month.) is to put hundreds of little hole-punch holes in it. Suddenly, not only are the holes interesting, it's got all these cool colorful dangly things (shh - they were there before).
On web sites like Parrot Strut, there are frequent posts about birds reaching hatchday milestones and occasionally photos of parrots in party hats. This raises a number of questions:
Do parrots tell time? They are very in tune to light-dark cycles and seasons but do they perceive an annual calendar.
Can they tell the difference between a new toy and a birthday toy especially since, as far as I can tell, everything around them belongs to them anyway?
Are there even party hats in Bug's size?
Am I a bad birdie slave because I don't think this little green parrotlet needs a party?
What do you think Bug?
'Nuf said.
