Question About Umbrella and Seed

[tielmama]

I'm going to use some of these suggestions for Whiteboy. He came to me as a mostly seed eater. I hold my breath and sneak away smiling every time he accepts an avicake or a nutriberry from me. He's been seeing his Sennie sister begging me for Nutriberries for 6 months. I always say, "Who wants a Nutriberry?" before I get the bag out. They watch me open the bag and I offer Lukey one first. Whiteboy politely took his and pitched it to the cage floor for months, but now he has taken them from me about 6 or 8 times, and I hope we are on our way! Lukey eats the parrot Zupreem natural pellets after dipping them in her water. Whiteboy has actually taken one of those from me and bitten it, then pitched the rest to the floor. My tiels eat the tiel size Zupreem. I didn't know about the taste difference. (Thanks for the taste test, Royjoy) I'll have to see if the "big" birds like those.

[JennKerry]

I just wanted to update everyone. We got Tiki some macaroni noodles, white rice and a wide variety of mixed veggies. She absolutely loves it. The next time we go to our supplier, we will try the nutriberries. Thanks again

[ray1457]

You might also try making some "birdy bread" and blend some pellets into the mix. For my normal "batch" (9x13 pan) of birdy bread, I use:

2 pkgs cornbread mix (Jiffy or similar)
4 eggs, including shell (recipie calls for 2; I double up to prevent crumbling)
substitute juice (any kind) for the milk called for in recipie
double handful (about 1/2 cup) of pellets

blend above ingredients in blender, then stir in a handful (1/4 cup) of seed mix. Some favorite veggies can also be added at this point.
Bake at 350 for about 40 minutes (or until done, use toothpick test).

[ROYJOY]

you mentioned, dunking the pellets. that reminded me of a second reason the teil ones are better, the oval ones are moulded harder thus requiring dunking in water. the little round teil ones not only taste better, but are easily chewed without dunking.

[tielmama]

I made some birdie bread yesterday with jiffy corn bread mix. I added the round Zupreem pellets and a can of mixed veggies. All 13 birds LOVED it! I didn't think of substituting juice, so they got the milk. It looked so good that my husband wanted some of it, until I told him about the pellets.

[jriley]

Try putting the birdie bread batter into regular ice cream cones and then baking it (I stood my cones up in muffin pans). Molly absolutely loves to demolish the cones. I'm really thinking that my giving her birdie bread was just what she needed: in the past week since I started giving her a cone every day she has finally started refusing her formula after several spoonfuls and I've seen her eating much more of her food! I'm hoping I can start pushing back her nighttime feeding from 5 pm to 8 pm little by little so that I have more freedom to go out and about.

Julie

[kensbuns]

I mix seed and Zupreem. I have gradually added less and less seed. Now Im not saying my U2 accepts the pellets cause she as well pushes them to the side however she does eat much more of her fresh!!

[JennKerry]

Well we tried the cornbread with the pellets over the weekend. Success!

[jriley]

Great! Funny thing, my sun conure is now refusing her Nutriberries (which used to be her absolute favorite food) because she's stuffing herself on her birdie muffins.

Julie