Creating your own dried fruit snacks

[DeaGrain]

I attend a lot of bird shows and heard at one of them about a company that allows you to create your own dried fruit snack mixes for the birds.

The reason that I am looking into it is most of the mixes come with certain types of fruits and/or veggies. Ki won't eat raisins and I have a friend whose bird won't eat bananas. Both are staples in the dried fruit mixes.

So the question is: Has anyone heard/dealt with this company? And if so...do you have the contact information?

Thanks

[kellywess]

You can pick up a dehydrator for about $20-$30 bucks. They are reasonably cheap. I use that and my juicer a lot. My yellow collared isn't too thrilled with fresh food, so I juice her. She loves drinking out of a glass and she loves juice... she thinks shes special. She is.

[chapala]

I avoid any dried fruit for my birds because of the concentrated sugar content, up to 10 times as high as fresh fruit. My birds get about 10% of the diet in fresh fruit, and I certainly don't want to add any more through dried fruit. Dried (dehydratead) vegetables on the other hand are fine to add to a dry mix.

[rewki]

I do not give my birds any dry fruit because their diet is filled with all they need in fresh fruits, vegetables and seeds and nuts. I freeze certain fruits and defrost when needed thus cutting down on the sugar concentration content that is in a dry product. If you must resort to feeding your birds dry fruit do not just give them a raisin, soak in water first to rehydrate it thus bringing it back to its naturals grape state, less sugar per nibble and it is a source of water replenishment at the same time. Also all dry fruits are treated with some type of preservative even if it claims to be 100% natural. Think about it. Take a grape allow it to dry out, does it look like the store bought raisin? Highly unlikely.

[chapala]

Good point. Most commercially available dried fruit has sulfur added to keep the fruit softer. Not good to feed to birds. There are unsulfured dried fruits available, or you could buy a dehydrator and do your own, but again, just not on my list for healthy bird food.

[DeaGrain]

He only gets it mixed with his everyday foods and not often (and he won't eat raisins). I also don't buy them at the grocery store only at bird shows/fairs for the same reasons mentioned above.

I have always assumed that the dried fruits purchased from vendors were ok to feed him, if not as good as fresh. Please let me know if that is incorrect

[chapala]

it's not correct. Buying from bird vendors doesn't mean the fruit is unsulfured.