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A Bird's Diet: Cook and Serve

© Mary Wilson

When it comes to cook and serve diets, small hookbills oftentimes receive the boring end of the spectrum. Many diets, such as Kaytee's Kitchen Creations, KrazyKorn, or Hornbeck's International Entrees (just to name a few), are designed for the larger parrot in mind. To look at the mix, you'll see large pieces of pasta, beans, nuts, and dehydrated fruits and vegetables that look like something you might eat. Diets for the small bird seem to be few and far between.

Yet, they are out there. Beak Appetit is one line of cook and serve diets that I enjoy for my small hookbills and finches. I've heard that Max Snacks are also designed for the small hookbill, and April Winger has her own line of food designed specifically for our little parrotlets, Parrotlet Take-Out, again designed with the little guys in mind.

But why cook and serve foods?

Well, some of us, myself included, like to cook, and who better to cook for than an appreciative audience? Believe me, two pionus and a parrotlet are pretty thankful when mommy spoons some of the latest creation into their food dishes. Braynon, the blue head pionus, makes a very enthusiastic, "Mmmmm" sound when I give him his cook and serve goodies.

Cook and serve diets also help to provide the all-important variety that our birds need for good nutrition. By varying the mixture used (if one purchases a cook and serve diet) or varying the recipe (for homemade diets), our birds can receive all the goodness of natural foods without much of a fuss.

I like to add things to my cook and serve diets as well. Powdered bird vitamins or organic baby food (rich in vitamins and minerals) both make excellent additions to the cooked food, and most of the time the birds won't even notice. My boys enjoy baby food so much that they'll eat it straight from the jar.

To buy a packaged mix or create your own becomes the last question. I like to do a little bit of both. I find organically grown beans and pasta made with organic grains at my local health food store. I found organic millet there, and found that when I mixed it with lentils, rice, oat groats, and bulgur wheat, a wonderful mixture resulted that I could cook for my finches. My larger birds enjoyed it as well. We can be creative, keeping in mind that as long as it is healthy for us, it is healthy for the birds. And where else could you mix pinto beans, lima beans, wheel pasta, millet, split peas, corn, carrots, and kiwi-mango baby food all together and not scare someone out of the kitchen? Your birds will call it heaven.

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