Parrot Nation

I’d heard of Facebook but didn’t quite know what to think. I joined Facebook sometime in January from an invitation sent to me from a cyber friend. This cyber-friend actually has the same last name as me and had been searching for family members. Turn out we aren’t related, but decided we’d be “cousins” anyway.

Then the cyber-poop hit the fan. Friends, and I mean friends I haven’t seen in 25 years began finding me. It was unreal! I began getting friend invites from people from all over the globe, Norway, St. Thomas, the Philippines, Finland, just everywhere. I found some people and people found me.  I made a lot of friends among the bird community as well as airline friends. Then High School friends began finding me and well, it all got a little wild.

Then I decided to gussy up my Facebook page with some photos and added a link to “Parrot Nation”. Whoa!  Just recently I put the concept for my parrots called “Chop” on this blog and that started getting tossed around cyberspace like rice at a wedding which thrilled me. It’s a great feeding concept for parrots and it’s been successful in getting birds with a bad “seed-monkey” on their back to break this “habit” and eat vegetables and other good stuff.

A few people mentioned this concept at the Houston Parrot Festival and how it has changed the way they feed their birds. It’s in the files at the Phoenix Landing Foundation Chat Group. It was published in “Bird Talk” Magazine a while back under the name “Parker’s Pot Pourri” and I’m hoping it has an impact world wide, because it makes feeding your birds “the good stuff” really easy and they will usually eat it. Sometimes it takes a while but they normally get the hang of it in pretty short order. If you know anyone who has a parrot, please have them take a look at the posts and videos for “Chop” at “Parrot Nation” because it’s just such an “easy-peasy” thing to do and frees up so much time. They eat great, and you’re aren’t standing at a cutting board twice a day. Liz Wilson mentioned in an article somewhere about people feeding their birds fresh cut or cooked recipes and stated that in her experience, they give up after a few years because it’s just too time-consuming.  Liz has many more years experience in the bird field than I do and I tend to believe her. But I couldn’t just take that lying down and accept this. I wanted to come up with a solution to the “Too busy to make a good meal for my Parrots, here have some seed” syndrome.

I wanted to come up with a solution that allows people to feed a good diet to their birds without that twice-a-day cutting board routine. I began doing research into something called “OAMC” (Once a Month Cooking) where you shop and cook for your family in one or two days and then freeze it. I figured out what freezes well, and what doesn’t. I looked at the nutritional value of fresh versus frozen vegetables, and what else “freezes beautifully”. With all of that, I came up with “Chop”. And man, does it work!

Other people everywhere seem to have caught on to this concept and as a result, there are a LOT of birds that are eating better because of it. I don’t mind a little seed. But I think people are beginning to get the idea that an all-seed diet is just a hideous thing for a bird to be on. I mean really, it just blows.  What bothers me is that there are people out there with parrots who don’t keep up with new information, don’t surf the Internet for new information, Hell, they don’t even get “Bird Talk” Magazine, and as far as I’m concerned, if you aren’t on the internet, that’s the very least you should be doing to learn about taking care of your birds.

Great for training; not so great as a base diet!

I’m not suggesting you have to download scientific papers from Avian Vet Symposiums, own a Merck Vet Manual and memorize the ideal Calcium to Phosphorus ratios (opinions range from 2.5 to 1 , down to 1.5 to 1. Okay, I know, I know;  I’m a geek…) I’m just suggesting that you really need to know what to feed your birds and then actually do it. That’s why the “Chop” recipe works so well: it’s no muss, no fuss and you don’t cuss on a daily basis about the time it takes to feed your bird a nutritional, and healthy diet. So please let all of your parrot-loving friends know that the “Chop” recipe posted here is easy, healthy and convenient for them. And as far as nutrition is concerned, it “blows” an all-seed diet out of the water.

My friend “Patricia” the Pesquet’s Parrot at the Cincinnati Zoo