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!

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.

Haven't posted in a while, but that doesn't mean life has stopped. I have started a new relationship,  moved, started a new job, left that job and am starting ANOTHER new job,  rehomed two birds (my tiels) back to the original owner of one of the tiels (they are much happier there, though I miss them). But in the mean time, bird toys have been made, foraging toys made and filled and then destroyed, lots of food cooked and eaten (and cleaned off the walls).

Some destructable foraging toys:

Foot toys:

 My caiques went through a "foot toys are boring" phase, which happily seems to be passing.

Kitchen sink bird bread (meaning everything but the kitchen sink, lol). Started with a mixture of oat, chickpea and coconut flour, 1 egg, a sprinkle of aluminum free baking powder.  Added three (organic) baby food packages: peach, sweet potato-and-apricot, and prune). Then added chopped almonds and walnuts, chopped frozen blueberries, chopped baby kale, cocnut flakes, chia seeds, and the leftover crumbly bits from the Unpellet Mix I put in my birds' foraging toys. 

My first grain bake: Barley, cooked with cherries, applesauce, coconut oil and flaxseed, with some quinoa macaroni noodles and frozen peas and corn thrown in for fun. Seasoned with cinnamon, ginger and crushed red pepper. Baked in a dish with lots of water till cooked!

Carrot, broccoli, mustard greens, okra, parsley, golden beets and tops, fresno red peppers, cooked butternut squash,zucchini, yellow bell pepper, purple cauliflower, rutabegas, garlic. Some organic, some not.

All mixed up!

Should last me awhile!

Chop chop chop!

Chop makin' time! :)

100% organic: sweet potato (cooked), broccoli, cauliflower, bok choy, carrot, kohlrabi w/ greens, rutabega, zucchini, poblano pepper, with chia seeds, avi-greens supplement and bee pollen added.

Tonka dives right in:

This should last 6-8 weeks!

Dinner Dinner Yum Yum!

Tonight I made a fresh cooked dinner for the birds: 5 grain mix, cooked with: frozen) sweet potato, cranberries, peas and corn; fresh) carrot, broccoli, spinach. Seasoned with cumin, garlic, ginger, turmeric, cinnamon, cayenne, crushed red pepper and served with sprouted seeds and pomegranite seeds.

A new way to prepare the sweet potato mash recipe!

Several posts below, I showed yall an awesome recipe for sweet potato mash balls rolled in oats. An inventive member of a parrot forum I frequent came up with a new way to prepare these! Once you have the mash completed, instead of forming larger balls and rolling in oats, I can now roll into smaller balls and bake. These make great one serving treats, and my three bigger birds all LOVE them cooked this way! The sweet potato mash recipe is a staple in my house, I ALWAYS have some in the freezer. Now, when I make a batch, I automatically portion it, and prepare half the original way, and half the new way.

It's easy to forget that sometimes simple is best!

I stole a simple but great idea from some friends of mine: I hung some dixie cups up around the playareas the other night for the birds to forage on. As soon as I hung each one up, Tonka was sprinting across the toys to get to it!  But I held her back and let Norah get to one first, and it was a difficult one!

I hung these up all over the two main play areas, and all the birds have enjoyed them. I fill the cups with bits of seed, pellets, and little toy bits like cut up straws, pony beads, tiny chunks of woods, and paper shreds. Now, when I bring the birds out to the playgyms, the first thing they do is start checking the cups to see if any new goodies have been added! This is foraging at it's most basic level, just like they would act in the wild. I love it!