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Enrichment Tip of the Month

by Kris Porter

Try baking your favorite birdie bread recipes in mini-muffin pans.  Use the end of a wooden spoon to put a hole in each muffin before putting them in the oven.  This enables you to string the birdie bread on toys which creates a foraging experience for your parrot.  Here is my parrot's favorite bird bread recipe:


Curry Corn Bread


Dry ingredients:

  • 3 cups stone ground cornmeal
  • 3 cups stone ground whole grain flours (try for a mixture).  Examples include amaranth, barley, garbanzo, oat, triticale, spelt.  You can also just use whole wheat flour.
  • 1 1/2 cups mixed rolled grains (usually found in the bulk food section of the grocery store or health food store).  You can also just use rolled oats.
  • 1 1/2 cups 7-grain cereal (this is a coarse ground cereal containing a mixture of grains like wheat, rye, triticale, barley, brown rice, oat bran, flaxseed, etc.)
  • 1/3 to1/2 cup raw pumpkin seed
  • 1/3 to1/2 cup raw sunflower seed
  • 3/4 cup millet
  • 1 tablespoon curry powder

Mix all of the dry ingredients above together in a very large mixing bowl. 

 

Vegetables:

  • About 3 cups of finely chopped or grated vegetables (Examples: broccoli, beets, chayote squash, zucchini, greens [Swiss Chard, collard, kale, mustard], carrots, peas, corn, etc.)

Mix the vegetables in with the dry ingredients thoroughly so that they become well-coated with the flours and are no longer present in clumps.


Wet ingredients:


In a blender or food processor, puree the following together:

  • 6 eggs
  • 1 large can pumpkin (29 oz)
  • 1 cup water or other liquid (carrot juice, almond milk, etc.)

Add the wet ingredients to the dry mixture and mix thoroughly.  (You might need to use your hands, since this creates quite a dense dough.)


Place into mini muffin pans and bake at 350 degrees for about 25 to 30 minutes.   Use one level tablespoon per muffin.  Before baking, use the end of a wooden spoon to create a hole in the center of each muffin, which then allows you to place these onto food skewers or incorporate into foraging toys.  Makes about 120 muffins.


This recipe can be halved quite easily.  It also freezes quite well after baking.


Bird Bread 

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October 2010
Hello Bird Lovers! 
 
I'm sooo late this month, it's almost embarrassing to call this the October newsletter!   For good reason however, I've been working hard on a new project and website that launched earlier today just in time for Halloween. 

Many of you have written about how you have enjoyed my quirky sense of parrot humor that sneaks out from time to time.  Well, I got to exercise that part of my brain on my new parrot ecard website www.HopeForFeathers.com.

HopeForFeathers.com was developed out of a desire to fund avian charities involved in parrot rescue, sanctuary, research and conservation.  Through HopeForFeathers.com we hope to provide much needed funds to our charity partners as well as provide a unique and fun service to parrot lovers.  I hope you will check it out, join, have a few laughs and help us in our mission!

For this month's newsletter, Kris Porter has cooked up a yummy Curry Corn Bread recipe for her enrichment tip of the month column and Patricia Sund shares with us her latest essay "Just One of Those Days" a humourous look at some of  the frustrations and joys of living with parrots.
Take care and remember to practice random acts of enrichment!

Sincerely,

Deb White
www.AvianEnrichment.com
 
P.S. Happy Halloween!!
Beakula
 
Just One of Those Days
  
by Patricia Sund
 

I just didn't feel like it that morning. I didn't want to feed a bird, look at a bird, clean a cage, hear any incessant chirping or listen to anyone whistle the theme from "Andy Griffith" yet another time. I was over it. I'd hit the wall. I was done. I'd had it.

 

It was one of those mornings where I had declared to Parker and Pepper, "Okay, that's it. It's toast for everyone!"  I would then toast some whole grain bread, spread peanut butter sprinkled with a fresh, fine ground veggie mix on it and slap it into the bowls mounted on their play stands. My birds love these mornings because they love toast. They pick up the piece of toast in their feet while they delicately and joyfully crunch away. It is truly hilarious to watch. Then I would feel guilty because I was a lazy caregiver. To me, if they were human, it would have been like handing them one of those microwave breakfast sandwiches to your kid. (Oh my God! They didn't get their broccoli! No flax seed oil! I forgot about their calcium supplement! I am a horrible person!)

 

I'm thinking to myself, "What have I done?"   I never used to worry about who would take care of things when I was gone. I could work a trip at my job as a Flight Attendant, come back 3 days later and not worry or even care if the place burned down. My electrical bill is sky high in the summer because I have to run the air conditioning all the time just for the birds. Before I got my African Greys, I used to just turn the thing off when I left. No more.

 

I am constantly chopping up vegetables, cleaning up bird crap, showering them and doing laundry. I'm training parrots, reading about parrots, writing about them, cleaning their cages, feeding them, and sweeping up after them.  Website surfing consists of surfing for articles about parrot training, behavior, and looking for the perfect toy. 

 

Read More 

 

 

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