Clover's Natural Mash Diet

I mentioned in our January posts that Clover had been switched to a new diet. Several people have asked me what is in the mash that I now feed her twice a day. "Shauna's Mash" instructions can be found in the Files of the Feeding Feathers Yahoo group.

The mash consists of 10% raw fruit, 45% raw vegetables, 30% cooked grain, and 15% cooked legumes. In each category, I try to maximize the number of different components. For instance, in the cooked grains category, I use brown rice, oatmeal, barley, and buckwheat. For legumes, I use peas, chickpeas and lentils.

The grain & legumes can be soaked overnight, cooked and frozen in ice-cube trays. Here is this mix getting ready to be soaked.



The veggies and fruits are supposed to be chopped fresh each day. However, having only one parrot means that 90% of my purchased veggies would go to waste that way. So I grate the veggies and freeze those too. Here is enough grated veggie mix for about 2 months.



Parrots need a lot of vitamin A, so you'll notice "high vitamin A" foods like red peppers, carrots, and orange squash in the mix.

I freeze all components in ice cube trays, then put the cubes in a Ziplock. I thaw one veggie cube and one grain/legume cube per meal. Only the fruit is added fresh.

The mash has a total of about 20 different ingredients. It costs the same as a good parrot food (Harrison's Organic), but it does take about 3 hours to prepare and freeze a 1-2 months batch. In addition, I have to remember to thaw it in advance, or I have to heat up two meals a day if I forget.

Clover took to the new mash diet very quickly. The key is that everything is grated and mixed really well. She still tries to pick through it, but I think she manages to eat at least a small amount of each item.



After Clover has eaten most of her mash, I then give her 1-2 nuts from several types: walnuts, hazlenuts, almonds. I hide her nuts in a variety of foraging toys like this Locked Up Loot toy.



Despite unsprouted seeds being unhealthy, I also use regular sunflower seeds for training. I tried sprouting them, but the sprouts got moldy after only 24 hours. Here's Clover taking a seed from my mouth.



Some say this practice is unhealthy, but we haven't had any issues with it. We also share ice cream cones, cups of yogurt, and table food.)

I sometimes add more than the 10% fruit. I figure that fruit in Africa must be seasonal, so there are some seasons when a parrot would eat more than usual. Here is a typical summer meal with a fresh plum from our apartment parking lot. We have a total of 7 different fruit and nut trees outside our apartment, all organic and unsprayed.