Feeding Fresh Veggies, Cucumber, Celery and more . . .

[Stuart whiting]

I presume when you say that yer egg food is powder, most egg food that I've ever used is like a crumbled dry fine biscuit texture,

If yours is literally more like a powder I'd then mix some crushed digestive biscuits in with it to give it some body texture then add a reasonable amount of liquid honey so it goes moist ( not soaking wet ) add a few seeds and I mean just a hand full and no more, the idea is they will eat a few seeds and coax em to eat the egg food and not gorge themselves just on seed,
The carrot and broccoli liquidise or grate as fine as you can and then add this raw into the mix.

Given time the birds will hopefully adjust to it, I'd feed this every day until you can see them starting to eat it, then you can control on how much you give and how often,

If they still refuse it one last trick to try is do exactly the same mix but also add a small amount of soak seed on top of the egg food and hopefully this will coax em

[JerseyGuy]

Yes, Stuart, I apologize - my egg food is just like yours, a crumbled fine dry biscuit texture. So now how do I finish preparing the mixture?

[Sally]

JerseyGuy I use the dry commercial egg food to add to my hard-boiled egg mixture. It helps to dry it out somewhat, since many of my birds don't like their egg food to be too moist. I happen to use Volkman's Gourmet Egg Food, but there are others in the U.S. that are also good--Morning Bird's Miracle Meal, Bird Care's Feast Eggfood, CeDe's Eggfood, Hagen's Tropimix. I just pulse the hard-boiled eggs in the processor along with some of the dry food. Mine like it quite dry, you might see if yours will try egg that is drier. One advantage to having a pretty dry egg mixture is that I can leave it out all day and it just dries up without going bad.

[Stuart whiting]

Yes, Stuart, I apologize - my egg food is just like yours, a crumbled fine dry biscuit texture. So now how do I finish preparing the mixture?

As mentioned above mate but don't bother with the digestive biscuit,

Egg food,
Mix with liquid honey ( normally about 250 ml bottle to 1 kg of egg food )
Liquidised or finely grated carrot and broccoli ( whatever is easiest )
Add 1 handful of oil seeds to the mix IE ( red rape, Niger, teasel, etc )

You can also used some soak seed and mix it into the mix or just sprinkle on top of their food each day,
Soak seed needs to be soaked on it own in plain water and kept in the fridge for 24 hrs and then drained off after this length of time, once drained, place a small amount with the egg food,
If yer using soak seed aswell you'll need to prepare this each day,
I normally prepare the soak seed in the morning and then drain off the water and feed to the birds the following morning and then repeat the process again, dry seed in a bowl of water and then placed in fridge for the 24 hrs and then drain and feed once again.

It's not essential to feed soak seed with yer egg food but they will often take to this over anything else offered and if mixed with egg food normally helps coax em to eat other foods in the mix

Mix the whole lot together and keep in a sealed Tupperware box in the fridge, NOT the soak seed as its best to keep this separate, the egg food mix can easily be kept and used for upto about 1 week providing you keep it in the fridge, just simply take out what need for each day's feed

The propiorty brands that I use are :

Birdcare feast, Donald cooks EMP or CeDe

Simples

[Stuart whiting]

JerseyGuy I use the dry commercial egg food to add to my hard-boiled egg mixture. It helps to dry it out somewhat, since many of my birds don't like their egg food to be too moist. I happen to use Volkman's Gourmet Egg Food, but there are others in the U.S. that are also good--Morning Bird's Miracle Meal, Bird Care's Feast Eggfood, CeDe's Eggfood, Hagen's Tropimix. I just pulse the hard-boiled eggs in the processor along with some of the dry food. Mine like it quite dry, you might see if yours will try egg that is drier. One advantage to having a pretty dry egg mixture is that I can leave it out all day and it just dries up without going bad.

Yep quite agree Sally,

With my mixture it's the whole and only reason why I use liquid honey to keep it just a little bit moist but more importantly I don't use any of the hard boiled egg no more as my mix simply cannot go off very easily,

It's taken me many hrs and years to experiment with various foods and found this mix to be ideal,
it's not over the top with ingredients but me birds seem to benefit from it and like the fact that it doesn't really go off.

The only time I'd change the food more regularly is if I mix soaked seed in with the mix

[JerseyGuy]

JerseyGuy I use the dry commercial egg food to add to my hard-boiled egg mixture. It helps to dry it out somewhat, since many of my birds don't like their egg food to be too moist. I happen to use Volkman's Gourmet Egg Food, but there are others in the U.S. that are also good--Morning Bird's Miracle Meal, Bird Care's Feast Eggfood, CeDe's Eggfood, Hagen's Tropimix. I just pulse the hard-boiled eggs in the processor along with some of the dry food. Mine like it quite dry, you might see if yours will try egg that is drier. One advantage to having a pretty dry egg mixture is that I can leave it out all day and it just dries up without going bad.

Yep quite agree Sally,

With my mixture it's the whole and only reason why I use liquid honey to keep it just a little bit moist but more importantly I don't use any of the hard boiled egg no more as my mix simply cannot go off very easily,

It's taken me many hrs and years to experiment with various foods and found this mix to be ideal,
it's not over the top with ingredients but me birds seem to benefit from it and like the fact that it doesn't really go off.

The only time I'd change the food more regularly is if I mix soaked seed in with the mix

Stuart::

You're going to have to bear with me a moment, but I just am not following you when you state " I don't use any of the hard boiled egg
no more as my mix simply can not go off very easily ".

Can you help me understand what it is that you are saying please ?

[JerseyGuy]

JerseyGuy I use the dry commercial egg food to add to my hard-boiled egg mixture. It helps to dry it out somewhat, since many of my birds don't like their egg food to be too moist. I happen to use Volkman's Gourmet Egg Food, but there are others in the U.S. that are also good--Morning Bird's Miracle Meal, Bird Care's Feast Eggfood, CeDe's Eggfood, Hagen's Tropimix. I just pulse the hard-boiled eggs in the processor along with some of the dry food. Mine like it quite dry, you might see if yours will try egg that is drier. One advantage to having a pretty dry egg mixture is that I can leave it out all day and it just dries up without going bad.

Sally::

The one thing I'm really trying to figure out is why my hard-boiled eggs are rather dry and yours aren't. Why would I need to dry out an already rather dry hard-boiled egg in the first place? Are your hard boiled eggs coming out wet? My Egg yolks are rather dry when I am done hard-boiling my eggs. Perhaps some people don't cook their eggs as long as I do so their egg yolks are not as cooked as mine. I guess that must be it. The brand of Egg food that I use is 'Quiko' brand egg food.

[debbie276]

The one thing I'm really trying to figure out is why my hard-boiled eggs are rather dry and yours aren't. Why would I need to dry out an already rather dry hard-boiled egg in the first place? Are your hard boiled eggs coming out wet? My Egg yolks are rather dry when I am done hard-boiling my eggs. Perhaps some people don't cook their eggs as long as I do so their egg yolks are not as cooked as mine. I guess that must be it. The brand of Egg food that I use is 'Quiko' brand egg food.

I think it depends on what you are adding and how you are mashing it.
I run the hard boiled egg through a garlic press or a potato ricer, depending on how many I am doing. The egg comes out worm like. I just add a bit of handfeeding formula (which I always have on hand) to make it a bit drier and crumbly. If you spread the mix thinly on a plate it will dry out before it goes off. I leave this mix all day and change out in the morning. Haven't had an issue yet.

[JerseyGuy]

The one thing I'm really trying to figure out is why my hard-boiled eggs are rather dry and yours aren't. Why would I need to dry out an already rather dry hard-boiled egg in the first place? Are your hard boiled eggs coming out wet? My Egg yolks are rather dry when I am done hard-boiling my eggs. Perhaps some people don't cook their eggs as long as I do so their egg yolks are not as cooked as mine. I guess that must be it. The brand of Egg food that I use is 'Quiko' brand egg food.

I think it depends on what you are adding and how you are mashing it.
I run the hard boiled egg through a garlic press or a potato ricer, depending on how many I am doing. The egg comes out worm like. I just add a bit of handfeeding formula (which I always have on hand) to make it a bit drier and crumbly. If you spread the mix thinly on a plate it will dry out before it goes off. I leave this mix all day and change out in the morning. Haven't had an issue yet.

I don't mash my hard-boiled eggs - I slice them and serve the slices on a plate.

What is "handfeeding formula" ?

What do you mean by saying : " . . it will dry out before it goes off"
I don't understand what that means and I have never heard that
expression before.

[LadyGouldianGirl]

JerseyGuy

Hi there JerseyGuy. I've been stalking around your posts for awhile. We are in the same boat. I have 2 male Gouldians that I've had a little over a month (keeping only as pets). I seem to be going through all of the same issues that you are so I've been following all of your posts

I'm having exactly the same issue with regard to feeding. They only seem to eat seed, millet, and egg shell. They won't touch anything soft at all. However, I found a bag of freeze-dried veggie mix at my local bird store. It has spinach, kale, carrot, and some herbs. I thought it would maybe be a good substitute for the fresh stuff. It took a full 2 weeks before my boys checked it out. They have finally been going at it now Yesterday I mixed in from fresh veggies with the dried. Although they cleaned off the plate, I noticed most of the fresh stuff on the bottom of the cage. I'm going to keep at it and see if I can get them to actually try some of the fresh mixed in with the dry. I'm curious what the experts think of the freeze-dried veggie mix. I'm sure it most likely isn't as good as fresh but it must retain some benefits, right???

These buggers sure are stubborn!

[Sally]

I put the eggs in the pot with cold water. Once the water starts to boil, I turn the heat down to the lowest number (electric range), and let them simmer for 15 minutes. I run cold water into the pot to cool the eggs enough to handle, then let them sit out till cool. Place in fridge till ready to prepare egg food.

I put eggs, vitamin mixture, and dry commercial egg food in food processor and pulse about 4-5 times, enough to fully combine but not turn the whole thing to mush.

Some of this I will serve right away or during the next few days, the rest I put in containers and freeze. (I boil 36 eggs at a time.) I can serve it like this, or I can add chopped veggies, or I can have the veggies separate, whatever works best for me.

@JerseyGuy Quicko's egg food is also a good one.

[Stuart whiting]

JerseyGuy I use the dry commercial egg food to add to my hard-boiled egg mixture. It helps to dry it out somewhat, since many of my birds don't like their egg food to be too moist. I happen to use Volkman's Gourmet Egg Food, but there are others in the U.S. that are also good--Morning Bird's Miracle Meal, Bird Care's Feast Eggfood, CeDe's Eggfood, Hagen's Tropimix. I just pulse the hard-boiled eggs in the processor along with some of the dry food. Mine like it quite dry, you might see if yours will try egg that is drier. One advantage to having a pretty dry egg mixture is that I can leave it out all day and it just dries up without going bad.

Yep quite agree Sally,

With my mixture it's the whole and only reason why I use liquid honey to keep it just a little bit moist but more importantly I don't use any of the hard boiled egg no more as my mix simply cannot go off very easily,

It's taken me many hrs and years to experiment with various foods and found this mix to be ideal,
it's not over the top with ingredients but me birds seem to benefit from it and like the fact that it doesn't really go off.

The only time I'd change the food more regularly is if I mix soaked seed in with the mix

Stuart::

You're going to have to bear with me a moment, but I just am not following you when you state " I don't use any of the hard boiled egg
no more as my mix simply can not go off very easily ".

Can you help me understand what it is that you are saying please ?

Patrick my freind I'll try to explain as best as I can,

Right ok, basically a propiorty brand of egg food comes in a pkt or a box, it is a form of dried egg food, most people just add water but this tends to dry out very quickly and in a short while goes dry , hard and lumpy if you get me jist

I've noticed that you are using Quiko egg food, this on its own is a very good formula and I also use this myself at times, you certainly don't need to add hard boiled egg to it, the egg is already there but dried

I mix a certain amount of liquid honey instead of the water as this way I found it seems to stay moist for a lot longer,

Now the difference between this and hard boiled egg is that the hard boiled is fresh as you can get but the down side is that it also sours and goes off extremely quick hence why I haven't used it for some time,

Yes I admit that the birds luv hard boiled egg but will equally eat the dried egg food if it's mixed properly to a decent formula that is suitable for them which is the very easy to prepare mix that I use and have explained

I hope all now makes sence

[JerseyGuy]

Stuart::

What does the phrase "Goes off" mean???
I'm not understanding that phrase.

Since my Gouldians will not eat hard-boiled eggs, I've stopped offering them. I'm running out of money to buy eggs

As for the Quiko Egg Food, I am offering it to them dry, with their Red Siberian Millet.

At the moment, my Gouldians have refused to eat fresh foods, whether it be fruit or vegetable, they will not eat it.

I continue to offer it, but each day I end up throwing it out.

They don't like leafy greens or broccoli, or cucumber or cabbage or carrots. Today I will be offering them canned Corn and Peas.
I'll see what they do with that.

I never had this level of frustration when I owned Parrots.
They were much more willing to accept fresh foods.

What I don't understand is that the Bird Store that they came from
also offered them fresh fruits and vegetables on a regular basis, and
the owner never told me that My 2 Gouldians were not eating it.
Go figure

[Stuart whiting]

JerseyGuy

Hi there JerseyGuy. I've been stalking around your posts for awhile. We are in the same boat. I have 2 male Gouldians that I've had a little over a month (keeping only as pets). I seem to be going through all of the same issues that you are so I've been following all of your posts

I'm having exactly the same issue with regard to feeding. They only seem to eat seed, millet, and egg shell. They won't touch anything soft at all. However, I found a bag of freeze-dried veggie mix at my local bird store. It has spinach, kale, carrot, and some herbs. I thought it would maybe be a good substitute for the fresh stuff. It took a full 2 weeks before my boys checked it out. They have finally been going at it now Yesterday I mixed in from fresh veggies with the dried. Although they cleaned off the plate, I noticed most of the fresh stuff on the bottom of the cage. I'm going to keep at it and see if I can get them to actually try some of the fresh mixed in with the dry. I'm curious what the experts think of the freeze-dried veggie mix. I'm sure it most likely isn't as good as fresh but it must retain some benefits, right???

These buggers sure are stubborn!

Hi mate ,

Welcome to the forum, it's good to hear that your also trying to percivere with yer birds,

I'm glad that yer birds are now starting to eat a few dried veggies, I personally can't see any problem with using the dried veg but still keep trying with the fresh stuff aswell as this to me would be far better and have more nutrients,

Time is the essence

[debbie276]

I don't mash my hard-boiled eggs - I slice them and serve the slices on a plate.

What is "handfeeding formula" ?

What do you mean by saying : " . . it will dry out before it goes off"
I don't understand what that means and I have never heard that
expression before.

You might want to try feeding your hard boiled eggs mashed up, you could even use the back of a fork to do that.
Handfeeding formula is a complete food to handfeed chicks. If your breeding birds you should have some on hand at all times. I happen to use "Kaytee Exact" but there are many others.
Going off as in going bad.