In the interest of giving my budgies a consistent diet, in order to prevent them from going into a moult the next time I want to breed them, I'm planning to make up a big batch of soft food, and freeze it in ice cube trays.

I'm planning to use specific vegetables and egg biscuit food that can be duplicated when I run low, so that the next batch is essentially the same.

My question is, does anyone know if it is better to freeze the crumbled egg biscuit separately from the finely chopped vegetables, or can I mix them together first, and then freeze them?

Does it even make any difference? I just want to know which way it will keep longer without spoiling.

I dont know. Could you do a trial on a small serve and see how it defrosts ?

That's a good idea! I will conduct a small experiment and examine the condition of the thawed food, mixed and unmixed, and see if there is any difference. This will probably take me a couple of days (I'm slow) and then I will post what I find out.

I really don't like freezing food like that as I think fresh is best, considering a bird can get sick so easily from tainted food.

I make up my powder mix and keep it separate and dry from the rest and each morning I grate carrot and greens into their soaked oats along with my special powder food.

I always take it away within 3 hours of them getting it as it can spoil so easily specially on hot days bacteria sets in.

I find when I freeze any veges it seems to be soaker plus I believe there are more vitamins in fresh food.

At night each breeding cage get a 1/4 piece of whole meal bread and they go nuts over it. The aviaries get a whole piece or 2 depending how many birds are in it.

That's my opinion only

Thank you, Splat. That's what I was after, other people's opinions

 

As part of my little experiment, I think I will also try the whole slice of bread option. If my birds like it that way, then I see no reason to go to the effort of crumbling it up and mixing it with the vegetables. Of course, being the neophobes they are, if they won't go near it, I will be forced to hide it in their vegetables after all.

 

Here's the first thing I learned from my experiment (because I've never cooked with eggshell, before): Don't think you can put unbroken eggs in a bowl and use a hand blender to chop them up. As soon as the blades of the blender hit the eggs, dry shell fragments went flying everywhere! And I do mean everywhere- far and wide. What a mess!! I even felt like I had bugs in my hair until I went and brushed the fragments out!

 

On a positive note, the loaf came out looking very good, and if it weren't for the shells baked into it, I would be taste-testing it. My youngest son asked me what I was making, and when I told him it was for the budgies, he said "Budgies?! Everything you make is for the budgies!" (Don't I wish my cooking load was that small!)

 

As far as fresh vs frozen goes, I usually use fresh, as well, but if I have fresh stuff that is not going to keep much longer, I will freeze it, and then I can take my time using it up. That's what I'm going to do today with a big batch of baby spinach leaves I have. My vegetable mix will contain carrots, spinach and broccoli. I'm planning to make a few different test batches, some to freeze and thaw immediately, and some to leave in the freezer for a couple of weeks, to see if longer term freezing makes a difference. So I may have an update on this tomorrow, but this is going to be an ongoing experiment.

Soft food experiment, day 2:

 

Today's discovery is that it is much less tedious to scoop the veggies onto a tray with an ice cream scooper, than it is to pack it into ice cube trays:

 

 

 

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I froze it like this, and then put the scoops into a freezer bag.

 

I also discovered that once you mix in the egg biscuit crumbles, it no longer packs well. So to freeze that part of it, I just spread it out into a pan, froze it, and then broke it up and put it in a freezer bag. Here it is in the tray before freezing:

 

 

 

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This is how the egg biscuit loaf turned out:

 

 

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And here are the budgies eagerly waiting for me to get done chopping vegetables and give them some! :fingerscrossed: :

 

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That was yesterday. Today was day 3 of the experiment.

 

I poured out a little bit of the vegetable-biscuit crumble mix into a bowl and thawed it in the microwave, just like I always do with the vegetable only mix. Only this time, I didn't give any to the budgies- I just left the test bowl of crumble to sit on the counter for 3 hours, to see how well it kept. I did the same thing with some of the egg-biscuit loaf that I had frozen all by itself.

 

After thawing in the microwave, they both seemed just fine. After sitting on the counter for three hours, they still seemed fine. No different than the regular stuff I give the budgies.

 

My result so far is that freezing the veg-biscuit mix overnight does not seem to affect its quality. It also doesn't seem to matter if the biscuit is mixed with vegetables or not. Next I plan to wait a week, and then do another thaw test with more of the biscuit crumbles, with and without veggies, and see if longer term freezing changes anything.

 

In the meantime, I will keep offering whole pieces of egg biscuit loaf to the birds in hopes that they will eventually try it. (By the way, this is Kaz's egg biscuit recipe from the faq's section.)

Edited October 23, 200915 yr by Finnie

Cool Thanks so much for posting the photos and write up. Some members might want to know your ingredients and quantities too :fingerscrossed:

Feeding like that,you will have to watch they don't go to fat.Very small helpings

would be the way to go,or you will kill them with kindness.

Feeding like that,you will have to watch they don't go to fat.Very small helpings

would be the way to go,or you will kill them with kindness.

 

 

Okay, wouldn't want to do that, would I?

I'd say about 1 tablespoon per bird, per day.

Probably take me a year to go through it all, if it keeps. (I'll have to do an update post on how many years the stuff can freeze for! )

 

Here's the recipe. I adjusted Kaz's a little, for American measurements:

 

1 cup whole cornmeal

pinch salt

2T olive oil (Kaz had peanut oil in it, which I don't have. I'm thinking of trying wheat germ oil, next time.)

2 cups all purpose flour, mixed with 1T baking powder (Whole wheat flour might be better, too)

3 eggs, including the shells

1/2 cup water (It was quite dry, which is okay. Maybe increase the water or the oil, or the eggs to make it more moist.)

 

Mix all together, put in greased 7" x 11" pan, bake at 350 degrees for 40 minutes, or until golden. (I'm sure any size pan will do, just adjust the time to compensate for thickness, or even use muffin tins!) Sorry, I don't know what the metric equivalent of 350 degrees is, but it would be whatever you normally bake cakes, etc at.

 

I'll try to remember to come back here and update, if I learn anything new about how this works out.

All that is a lot of work! I rather do it all in the moment. They get fresh food everyday. Besides my mom would never allow me to keep food in the freezer that was meant to be for the budgies haha.

ha i did that for a while only i did not defrost in micky wave i left thaw on bentch the portals were small enough that it was fine doing this

i also had kids tell me i cook the birds more that i do them in way of biscuits lol

how ever i used many different things

 

i am over it now as i got ridiculed to much by my outside family members

the birds have their own fridge in shed with freezer and i keep a supply of different veg and seasonal fruit fresh,frozen ,and sometimes canned

i do however still cook their fresh rice and beetroot the beetroot is cooked in vinegar although i only feed this more in winter and serve warm (not the beet that gets given monthly )

when ever i cook mash i do extra for them and of course they love the roasted chicken carcus

they get breed daily all different types however they don't really eat the raisin breed

Edited October 27, 200915 yr by GenericBlue

Myine love chicken carcase too when I give it to them and bres maunly while meal or grain that love also, I much orefer to make it daily as it doesn't take long.

Myine love chicken carcase too when I give it to them and bres maunly while meal or grain that love also, I much orefer to make it daily as it doesn't take long.

 

i love your bread mainly too whole meal or grain

dam key computer has a slerrrrrrrrrr hay

All that is a lot of work! I rather do it all in the moment. They get fresh food everyday. Besides my mom would never allow me to keep food in the freezer that was meant to be for the budgies haha.

 

 

I've always done just a little bit each day, too. And if I made a tad too much, it would go into ice cube trays to freeze. I found that on days when I was rushed, it was nice to have the cubes handy.

This is the first time I made up a big batch, and I don't really think it took much longer than the usual, considering it's the same amount of cleanup, as far as knife, cutting board, chopper, mess all over the counter . (Just a bigger bowl.)

Anyway, I got the idea because I got a big box of baby spinach leaves on sale at the store, and I knew from past experience, that using a little of it day by day, I end up throwing away half of it.

And Cory, this is where I am lucky, because I am the mom!

ha i did that for a while only i did not defrost in micky wave i left thaw on bentch the portals were small enough that it was fine doing this

i also had kids tell me i cook the birds more that i do them in way of biscuits lol

how ever i used many different things

 

i am over it now as i got ridiculed to much by my outside family members

the birds have their own fridge in shed with freezer and i keep a supply of different veg and seasonal fruit fresh,frozen ,and sometimes canned

i do however still cook their fresh rice and beetroot the beetroot is cooked in vinegar although i only feed this more in winter and serve warm (not the beet that gets given monthly )

when ever i cook mash i do extra for them and of course they love the roasted chicken carcus

they get breed daily all different types however they don't really eat the raisin breed

 

 

When I die I want to return as a bird living at GB's house Boy they get spoilt over there

Time for the final results of my experiment!

 

After 1 month in the freezer, I thawed some of the veggie-biscuit mix in the microwave, and then left it to sit in the bowl on the counter for 3 hours. The purpose of microwaving it first is to make sure that the cooking/thawing doesn't hasten spoilage.

 

After 3 hours, it was fine. So the next day, and until I used it up, I began feeding it to the birds. It really doesn't appear any different to the fresh vegetable mix I give them, seeing as it is all pulverized by the food processor either way.

 

They never really did take to the chunks of bread loaf I was giving them. Mostly they would pull it out of the feeder cup and drop it on the floor of the cage. Sometimes it looked chewed, other times not. I'll still give them some, because eventually they will start eating it more, but I will also be adding it crumbled up to the veggies.

 

And here is an example of how extremely lazy I am. I found that I would much rather thaw the mixture that was frozen together than the veg's and biscuit separate! Gee, saved myself one measly step!

 

I also adapted the egg-biscuit recipe again to compensate for the dryness, and to increase the outcome. Here is the newest version:

 

2 cups whole cornmeal

pinch salt

4 cups whole wheat flour

2T baking powder

6 T oil, any kind

8 eggs, including shells, crushed

1 1/2 cups water

 

Preheat oven to 350. (or metric equivalent). Grease 13" x 9" pan.

Mix the dry ingredients in a large bowl. Add all the wet ingredients and stir together. Spread in pan, bake 40 minutes, or until golden. Allow to cool. Slice or crumble. May be frozen.

 

 

So, in summary, here is my current feeding plan:

 

Seed mix, about 1 tablespoon per every 2 birds in the morning and again in the evening.

Fresh, whole vegetable pieces and greens, varied, depending on what's on hand. These are clipped to the bars for gnawing. Usually about 1 per bird.

Chunk of bread, 1 per cage

and Veg/ biscuit mix, about 1 tablespoon per every 2 birds. (This consists of finely chopped carrot, broccoli, spinach and apple with a dash of lemon juice, to which I add some biscuit crumbles, some seeds, some powdered mineral vitamin supplement, and some moulting/conditioning aid.)

 

I know they eat the veg/biscuit mix, because I can see it on their masks but it still seems like I am throwing it all away in the end.

Macka is right, a little goes a long way, and I am trying to cut back portions to cut down on wastage. I guess that will be an ongoing process. Thanks for reading