Tuesday, February 4, 2014

Some recent food stuffs:

                                                                            Bread!
This is my Kitchen Sink bread. I start with 2-3 types of non-what flour- maybe chickpea, or oat, or almond or coconut. I add 1 or 2 eggs, and a sprinkle of aluminum free baking powder. A cup or so of something soft and wet (canned pumpkin, or 3 packages of organic limited ingredient baby food or applesauce, etc). Chopped berries, or grated carrots, chopped leafy greens like spinach, kale, collard greens, etc. Flax and or Chia seed. Or sesame seeds. Or all three! Yay! Hulled Hemp Seed. Dehydrated veggie mix from Goldenfeast. Coconut oil and flakes. The loose broken bits left from a pack of Phoenix Foraging Roll's Unpellet Mix (a staple in my house for foraging). I feel like I am forgetting something(s). But you get the idea! My birds LOOOOOOOVE bread, which can be heavy on the carbs (which can mess with the blood sugar levels) and low on nutrition. So I allow them some every day, but I make it wheat and corn free and as packed with nutrition as possible! They get one small square inch or smaller chunk, split between all three birds and broken into teeny pieces, wrapped in paper and put into foraging toys every morning. On the rare mornings when I am out of time or out of bread, they get VERY upset when I skip it! 

I've also been experimenting with my dehydrator to make some bird crackers. 


My first blend was cooked quinoa, frozen mixed berries, mustard greens, carrots, apple, cranberries, hulled hemp seed, coconut flakes, flax seed soaked in water. I spread this first mix too thin in the dehydrator and they are super thin and crumbly. They fall apart in your hands! I have been crumbling them onto chop as a treat, as they are too delicate to just hand over as treat. I just made a second batch with cooked quinoa, spinach, collard greens, frozen mixed berries, apple, cranberries, hulled hemp seed, coconut flakes, almond paste and flax soaked in water. This batch is better, but still a bit thin and very crumbly. This batch and the remains of the first batch will be donated to Wings Of Love Bird Haven, a parrot rescue I will be visiting soon for a volunteer toy making day!

Sunday, February 2, 2014

Um, hi. Long time no blog. Nothing too exciting, but I do have some pics to upload. I figure, since I moved into my current home over a year ago, it might be time to post pics of the birds' current play areas. :)

At my new home, the birds (two caiques who share a cage, and one red bellied parrot) have their own room, which I was very excited about, but not quite so much anymore. I don't love them being so separate. But it's a nice room! They share it with the bunny.

I had to put my thinking cap on for a play gym in the room for the caiques, as the room is small and half of it goes to bunny pen. So I made a giant pvc frame for over their cage. Hang toys and nets and whatnot on it, and let em go to town. They love it! This has been embellished to the point of ridiculousness, much more so than in the picture. Keeps them busy. Sometimes. Not always. They ARE caiques.