No More Pellets!!!!!!

[Ringneckmom]

Lisa - my birds love the Mayan Harvest series from Higgins. I usually get the Yucatan for my Plummies and Ringies and the Celestial for my Derbyan. The ringies will also eat the celestial.

They have so much stuff in the mix and quite a bit of fruit in it, which is the first thing my guys go for.

I was doing a search on Ringnecks and trying to find what they eat in their native countries and actually found a site that said that the ringnecks do eat pollen as part of their diet. I thought that was interesting.

[FeathersNFur8]

I have a bird that will not anything eat fresh but thinks anything dried is wonderful. So I was thinking about getting a food dehydrator and doing her fresh foods myself. Does anyone have any thoughts or experiences with doing this?

Also, I read a post about organic oranges. Were the oranges bad because they were organic or were they just bad oranges? If anyone has any inormation about organic, please share. My first thought is that if I am going to dehydrate fresh food, it will be organic.

[FeathersNFur8]

Originally Posted by Lisa B

:I'm gunna try the myan stuff(or whatever it is) from Higgins next time I order.

Lisa here's a link where you can read the ingredients for the different varieties. This is where I order from, good prices and good service.

http://www.foryourbird.com/page/fory...d/CTGY/higgins

[The Outlaw]

Karen:

I have a 10 layer food dehydrator that I use periodically. Here are the pros and the cons:

It takes a long time, usually overnight to dehydrate a full batch.
I takes bushels of produce to produce a few gallons of dried.
If you decide to dehydrate more fragile fruits, the water content is often so high that you run the risk of mold.
Its a lot of work. With many fruits and veggies, you need to lemon/water bathe them first.
Its MESSY.
Unless you are growing your own stuff, it can be more expensive.
You have to work quickly. Fresh produce doesn't last long and you'll only have so many hours to dehydrate it.
There is a tremendous amount of waste.
If you don't get them dry enough, they will get moldy.
They will also absorb the humidity in the air and can be less stable than you might think.
I once decided to make beef jerky for the family. I thinly sliced up a roast, think it was a bottom round, and it only eventually yield a one gallon bag of jerky. I was very dissapointed in the volume, but it tasted divine.

[The Outlaw]

Karen:

Apparently, there was a fungus or mold (can't remember which) than invades the inside of the orange and is undetectable on the outside. You really can't see it. That's one of the reasons that regular growers spray for fungus and mold. I'll have to ask John to define exactly what the pathogen was. Michelle and Fids also knows John and can probably remember how crushed he was and how awful the neighbor felt. She hadn't eaten oranges from her tree in a long time and simply didn't know of the danger. That's why I have mixed feelings about total organic produce. I haven't a clue how or if they treat their produce with anything. We usually worry about insecticides, but frankly the mold was far more toxic. These birds were dead within a few hours.