You Do Not Need Extensive Chop Recipes

you should be offering fresh vegetables to your birds every single day to have a good, healthy, balanced diet. Pellets are my “supplements” and my birds are focused more on being fed fresh foods than pellets. It’s good to have a large range of fresh foods to feed your bird so they get the nutrients they need from all groups and to keep their lives exciting!

But, those with smaller flocks, I see a lot of people panicking about having all these ingredients in their chop and it becomes too big. A lot of people are afraid of wasting foods. There is a lot of social media pressure of these large chop recipes focusing on how many ingredients there are. But for smaller flocks, it seems impossible. I know my chop lists can get long, but I have a lot to feed.

What I recommend to people is start small. Buy say one yellow squash and give your bird yellow squash till it’s gone then go out and get purple cabbage and do the same. Or do two vegetables a day. Do what you can afford and what you know your bird can eat in a week.

I also never liked freezing chops. They come out mushy, stinky, and never crisp. I don’t know if my guys are just spoiled (most likely) or it was the chops consistency but when I used to freeze chop, the birds never touched it. I also had more problems with smelly poops which is usually diet related. A lot of vet visits that I never get when feeding chop prepared for the week in my fridge.

Don’t get sucked into the hype or people trying to seek you products. Feed what you can! I always say feeding one fresh item is better than feeding none, so it’s a step in the right direction no matter how “little” the steps seem compared to others, including me! You can also try to feed two fresh meals and then pellets at the very end of the day so your bird has access to fresh all day long!