Are there any bad beansgrains?

[Guest SchreibG]

Hello to all,

 

I'm wondering if anyone knows of beans or grains I should not give my AG. I bought a bag of 15 different beans from a local grocery store and just want make sure I'm giving my grey "safe food".

[Guest DjHarlequin]

monkey nuts are peanuts in the shell.lol.

[Guest DjHarlequin]

and with no nasty peanuts (monkey nuts)

To PMD. Stop feeding the monkey nuts, they are not good and may be infected with aflatoxin.

I would be happy to send you my birdy dinner ecipe based on sweet potatoes.

Several peeps have tried it and nobody yet has reported back that thier bird wouldn't eat it.

Rest assurred that with WMPP your bird *is* getting a good balanced diet and will stay healthy while you introduce new food to him.

[Guest javacrypto]

Oh heck I already have - lolol!

[Guest javacrypto]

As long as they are cooked. Some beans aren't good for them given raw. But cook them up and your grey should see them as manna from heaven .

[Guest javacrypto]

Let me know what day and I'll be there too <G>. That sounds pretty good to me even!

[Guest javacrypto]

Welllllll...depends on who you ask. According to toxicologist Gillian

Willis, lima beans, kidney beans, and soybeans contain enzyme inhibitors that can prevent certain nutrients from being assimilated properly.

 

According to Caroline Swicegood, fava, navy, lima, pinto, black, anasazi, kidney, and soy beans have been known to cause problems in some humans.

 

Others (can't remember exact sources at the moment) report mild toxicity in some beans unless cooked...

 

You can sprout them and then cook them with brown rice. While some of the nutrients gained by sprouting will be affected, they're supposed to be more nutrient-dense than if just soaked/cooked. I've done that, and have also run sprouted beans through the food processor, mixed them with egg and

8-grain flour and garlic, and made "cookies".

 

But there are folks who have fed raw (soaked/sprouted) beans forever with no ill effects in their flocks...so go figure...

[Guest javacrypto]

Oh you Brits are such a silly lot <G>...monkey nuts indeed, I will have to remember that means peanuts, I'm sure my husband will be taken aback when I offer him some monkey nuts the next time we are watching a movie together - lol.

[Guest javacrypto]

I'm not personally familiar with Witte Molen Premium but have only heard good things about it from your side of the pond . What are monkey nuts?

As for wanting dry foods, I describe a topping below, that I toss with his veggies/sprouts/greens sometimes. The topping or coating as it now could be considered, absorbs some of that moisture and the foods are then quite dry to the touch. Whether your bird would consider them "dry" enough, I don't know though . Anyway, I can tell you how I feed my grey, and why, and you can put that together with what else you've learned or the experiences of yourself and others, and decide what you think is best?

 

First, he has his "dry mix" in his cage 24/7 (even though he himself isn't in there 24/7 - his food is <G>). I don't call it a seed mix because it also contains other things like grains, nuts, dried fruits and veggies, and other things that vary by the day and what I have on hand. One day I might toss a few corn flakes in, another he'll get some of my breakfast toast (multi-grain, etc.) While his dry mix is available all the time, he doesn't eat that much of it so it probably makes up much less than half of his diet.

 

Second, I feed a lot of live and/or raw foods, and try to make that the largest proportion of his diet. That includes germinated and/or sprouted seeds, grains, and legumes, plus raw vegetables, especially the dark red or orange or green ones for the most nutritional punch, plus greens. He doesn't care for greens, though, so I dehydrate them and then crumble them into tiny bits by rubbing them between my palms, and the bits stick nicely to the other foods . I make up my own sprout mix, which also varies as I keep a big jar and whenever I go to a store that carries sproutable food, I get a little and add to the jar. So it's always changing and always consists of at least a couple dozen foods. Some things take a long time to sprout (popcorn, for instance) so occasionally I do those separately but usually don't bother. Everything that goes into the jar has to germinate within 24 hours in the fridge or I lose interest in keeping it. I make a topping that I put on his daily "salad" also, and it contains ground flax seeds which I think is important for greys to have every day (the Omega 3 fatty acids are necessary in balance with the Omega 6's that are in their seeds, and there is some speculation that low Omega 3 levels in the diet contribute to problems such as plucking; flax seeds have a very tough shell and there's no benefit to eating them whole, so to make sure they get eaten,

I grind them up fresh each day - they will deteriorate fairly quickly once the shells are ground), but the other ingredients vary by the day also and may contain an herb mix, sesame seeds, hemp seeds, fresh ground grains, etc.

 

The last part of his diet is cooked food like birdie breads, eggs in the form of omelets full of veggies and a little cheese which he LOVES, beans'n'rice (or pasta), etc. For hand-fed treats he gets almond slivers and Bigger Birdie Bites (of course! <G>) usually. Every so often - maybe once or twice a week - he gets berries or cantaloupe or some other nutrient-dense fruit. But fruits aren't a huge part of his diet at all.

 

Why I feed this way - Variety is the key (for reasons I discuss on my website - www.ittybittybirdiebites.com/nutrition.html ), and also, with regard to their specialized needs (calcium/magnesium/potassium/D/phosphorus, and fatty acids), I make special accomodation. For example, because I not only want to meet his need for calcium (dark greens, almonds, egg, a little cheese) but also want to make sure he gets adequate magnesium (almonds, greens, sunflower seeds), potassium (greens, beans), and Vit. D (eggs, cheese, fish) to properly utilize the calcium. Phosphorus is also necessary for calcium absorption but the cal:phos ratio should be 2:1 and and since foods like beans and nuts have plenty of phosphorus that's not usually a concern. (What IS a concern, however, is when a bird is fed too much, as in corn for example, with a cal:phos ratio of 1:12 or something like that; it's a cheap filler in some seed mixes, plus many folks use lots of corn meal in birdie breads, and then their birds also pick out the corn from their veggie mixes, and this, along with the other sources of phosphorus in the diet, will really skew that overall cal:phos ratio and cause problems with utilization of calcium...all this to say that I limit any foods containing corn with him, and use other grains in my birdie breads with almost no corn meal, etc. Sometimes the "greys need more calcium" worry comes about because, while a bird may be getting plenty of calcium, the nutrients he needs to assimilate and utilize it aren't being provided, or are being provided in the wrong ratio with the calcium itself...)

 

Anyway, that's why I feed my grey the way I feed him and this is turning into a book so I'll stop...rather abruptly it appears but what better way to stop?