My first Chop Mix

[JadeC]

So, I've been feeding a basic veggie mix since my caique got home, but I decided to try a chop mix so I wasn't chopping veggies every weekend. I ended up with about a month's worth of fresh food for my baby. ^___^

Here's what I used:
Zucchini
Yellow squash
Sweet potato
Broccoli
Green pepper
Red pepper
Half a cucumber
Spiral noodles
And a basic veggie mix of frozen corn, peas, carrots, green beans and Lima beans

I also mixed some sprouts in before serving.

He LOVES it!!! He gobbled it up so quick! :) He loves peppers, and it smelled like peppers, so I'm sure it tasted yummy! It smelled good to me. Haha So easy and he gets a nice healthy meal.

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[JadeC]

I'm proud of myself haha Had to share :P

[Blancaej]

Great job! Glad he loves it too! :D

[Honesty]

It looks good enough for me to eat Jade :)

I wish Codie would eat things like this. I spend so much time trying all different things for him, only for him to turf it out of his dish:(
Can you believe he does not even lie birdie bread?

[JadeC]

Thanks Wendy and Blanca!! Wendy, I'm sure you've tried everything, huh? Did you try juicing? I gave Meiko some fruit juice with a few chunks of fruit and he loved it haha Just get creative! Which I'm not good at, but it's getting there.

[spiritbird]

Way to go!!! What is the last photo? Did you freeze some? I usually drain the mix before freezing and after thawing so it is not as mushy. There are so many ways to make it. It does take some woman labor though.

[Honesty]

Thanks Wendy and Blanca!! Wendy, I'm sure you've tried everything, huh? Did you try juicing? I gave Meiko some fruit juice with a few chunks of fruit and he loved it haha Just get creative! Which I'm not good at, but it's getting there.I haven't tried juicing. I will give it a go. He does seem to love fruit, its the veg and different chop mixes that he is very fussy with. He loves brussell sprouts. I dont know many birds that like these lol

[JadeC]

Thanks Diane!! Yeah, I froze about a month's worth haha I drained it and let it set out for like half an hour before I bagged it and froze it. The last photo is a picture of my sprouts before I mixed them.

Wendy, I'm glad I could give you some new ideas! Yeah, you can juice veggies and the fruit juice covers the taste. I drink the stuff, so I thought the birds would like it.

[Rescued]

I swear my little RF thinks that fresh food is disgusting, the only thing I can get him to eat is watermelon. He loves his pellets, but no matter what I do fresh food is a no no, the others love my mixes. :-(

[JadeC]

I'm sure birds taste buds change just like ours. Maybe try again every year or so and see if they'll eat it? Haha Or maybe give them chunks of veggies and then try mash? Just some ideas :P

[Honesty]

Codie used to love carrots, now he will not touch them. He would never eat broccoli, now he has decided he likes it. I expect next week, he will go onto something else lol. I will try the fruit juice though and see if he will eat the chop mix with that poured over it.

[Rescued]

Yeah, I offer him new foods all the time and the same stuff all the time. My other guys like mash, bread, and chop, so he gets offered that almost every day. He is just a weirdo. Alas I will continue to try.

[spiritbird]

And I thought I was a picky eater!!!:desismileys_0606:

[Mare]

Your chop looks good! Yum! Amigo is my picky eater but I'm thankful that what he likes is healthy. Sassy will eat most anything and very enthusiastically! She's my little miss piggy. :)

[JadeC]

Haha I'm starting to realize that my caique is a little piggy!!!

[Turquoise]

Your chop mix does look so delicious Jade. I can see why Meiko loves it. Cooking ahead for them does help out on work days when you are stressed for time. Or in my case their main meal is fixed & served while I am yearning to go visit my bed after being up for 18 hrs.

My two boys ate all kinds of veggies & things when they were young. Then the decided one day they were going to be picky & have stuck with that attitude since! Fresh or cooked, if it is in their food bowl, most ends up on the floor. At the table eating with us, they will eat almost all veggies offered them. Try to add those same veggies to their bowl the next morning, even warmed & they are not easily fooled or impressed. :th_LOL: They will eat the birdie breads if it taste more like fruits than veggies. They are fiends for fruit & I have to make sure not to add too many lest all the other foods are ignored.

My Ruby Jewel & Leyla Belle eat almost everything I put in their bowls. Leyla Belle has to mumble while she is eating. It is so funny her trying to talk & chew, you can't understand a thing she is saying, but she is having the time of her life telling me how much she loves my cooked foods.:th_heart: Ruby Jewel is a very hearty eater, I do hope she continues to like all kinds of food.

[ConureGuy]

I had to change jinx and georgie's food as the animalzone pellets i use to get for them i can't get no more so i have changed georgie to kaytee exact rainbow and jinx to zupreem FruitBlend keko will also be on the zupreem although i am thinking of trying him/her on harrisons instead and as for fruit and veg both jinx and georgie love it. :)

[JadeC]

Meiko doesn't eat his pellets.. He was raised on Harrison's fine high potency pellets, and Zupreem fruit pellets but doesn't eat either of them... They just sit in his cage or go to the bottom. I don't know how to get him to eat his pellets. I mean, I mix pellets in with his chop mix but he usually picks around them. He eats nutriberries. I guess that's good enough.

[Turquoise]

If he is eating a variety of other good healthy foods which it sounds like he does, I would say he is not going to become malnourished from not eating pellets.

I am not of the thinking that my birds have to eat pellets to be healthy since they eat lots of different things. Some people think they should have a certain amount of pellets daily. My two Catalina macaws ate Katy & Zupreme pellets when they first came home. As they began to eat more & more different things, they quit eating pellets except occasionally. Both are as healthy as can be & their feathers glow with color, so I don't worry about it and I keep pellets in their bowl daily if they want it.

Ruby Jewel & Leyla Belle dunk most of their pellets in their water. How much they really eat of this soup or just when they get soft is anybody's guess. They too eat lots of other things, so if they are just playing with them I can live with it.:th_biggrin:

[Pinkbirdy]

My Caiques always have pellets in their mix [in attempt to maybe eat one by accident LOL] Their good at picking around them though. They are great eaters on everything else . Maybe its a Caique thing ?

[JadeC]

He'll eat the Harrison's if he's out and I offer it, but he doesn't touch it in his cage. Haha Maybe it is a caique thing, who knows? I'm sure he'll be fine since he eats his veggies, fruits and nutriberries :) I give him some pasta, but I'm gonna be adding rice and barley to his next chop mix. I'm still trying to get this whole nutrition thing!! Especially for myself!!!! I need to eat healthier.

[Lady]

Oh this looks great! I would taste it myself.