“How To Grow a Garden For Your Parrot!”, by Nora Caterino
*************************************************
I’m sure you are already aware that a varied diet for your parrot is crucial to a long, healthy life. My birds need the mix of vitamins and minerals available in a diet which includes fruits and vegetables. In the wild, parrots eat a variety of grasses, nuts, seeds, fruits, and even bugs.
Do you ever wonder what toxins are on those vegetables we buy for our birds in the store? I do.
I worry about it for myself, but since I am well over 100 pounds in weight, I know the effects can be much more serious on my feathered children who weigh, at most, a few pounds. Smaller species weigh only ounces or less. Think of the impact any residual insecticide would have on your bird.
I also want my pets to have fun foods that they love. Food should be a pleasurable experience. Whether you feed a pellet-based diet or a seed-based diet, adding the fresh produce from your bird garden will become an event your parrot relishes.
Every spring, I clear a space in my lawn for the garden. I normally use about a three to four foot square area. I remove an inch or two of soil, replacing it with sterile potting soil. The biggest bags are inexpensive enough and two to three bags are all I need.
I create rows or furrows in the soil so that I can plant different plants in each row. A four foot square plot should not contain more than two or three rows so the plants have room to grow. The edges of the entire plot, I reserve for my sunflower plants, leaving a gap so I can enter the main garden.
Sundance, my sun conure loves hot peppers. I select hot peppers from her seed mix and plant two or three plants of these. I also purchase or save seed from last year’s harvest of habanera, Thai, and other hot peppers. She loves them all and so do I. This creates one garden row in my small plot, because I want to share some of her goodies!
In the next row, I plant English peas and bunch beans. The English peas will have to be staked as they grow, but stakes are easy to find and can be used year after year. Watching Sunny hold a fresh English pea shell in her claw while opening it to get the small peas out is so much fun for me, and she loves to eat them.
The bunch beans will not have to be staked and will grow what are commonly called “string beans”. I pick these while the beans are young and tender. All my birds, both large and small, love to eat the fresh beans. If I have an excess, of course I cook some of these for the family.
I try to save a little space to sprinkle leaf lettuce or spinach seed. When the leaves are young, the birds love them. I don’t allow the lettuce to grow every tall and continually thin out the crop. I never, ever allow my babies to have iceberg lettuce because it has zero nutrition.
Last, I plant the sunflowers around the edge of the garden. This protects the garden somewhat from intruders and makes it very pretty as the tall sunflowers grow and blossom. I thin the sunflowers so they are about a foot apart; I always seem to plant too many.
The young plants which I pull up serve as early green food that is healthy and relished by my feathered kids of all sizes. I make sure I have plenty of sunflowers that are allowed to mature, however, because the wild birds will come for their share!
My parrots relish fresh sunflower seeds. In fact, since the birds like the seeds fresh from the sunflower head so much better than what is in their seed mix, these are used as training rewards during the harvest season. I refrigerate a few heads or freeze some heads to last over time, but the birds most love the ones fresh from the garden.
If you have the space, of course, you could add corn, squash, zucchini, or any vegetable your bird loves. I try to ensure I make my bird garden manageable in size for me, but large enough to supply my treasured babies with treats.
For my small birds from parakeet to small conures, I simply purchase a rectangular flower tray, or often use a shallow flat tray of any kind as long as it is cleaned thoroughly.
Plastic storage containers that I have lost the lids that match work very well. I punch several drainage holes in the bottom and use the container again and again. Of course, you can just provide a spot of clean dirt in your yard, if you prefer.
I fill my container with clean, sterile potting soil, stopping about ? inch from the container “fill line”. Then I sprinkle the seeds from my bird’s seed mix on top of the soil, covering with more sterile soil. I tamp (press) the soil down lightly and add some water.
Within as few a three days, sprouts will begin to appear. I water as needed, keeping the soil fairly moist. When the sprouts grow to two to three inches in height, I begin to pull small quantities of greens up by the roots.
I attach the sprouts to the cage bars with a bird-safe clip. If I have a bit of dirt attached, I don’t worry. Sterile potting soil is non-toxic and my birds like to nibble it and knock it off the roots.
A note to the small bird owner: do not buy a “bird garden” from a bird magazine. They will send you a VERY small pot, some bird seed, some soil and tell you to do exactly what I have recommended! Those kits cost $5.95 or more and you can use that money to buy a new toy for your small bird instead!
*************************************************
ABOUT THE AUTHOR:
Nora Caterino helps parrot owners from over 14 different countries in taming and teaching parrots to TALK. If you want to learn more about her parrot training videos – to instantly solve annoying behaviour problems like biting, screaming, or feather plucking – then join the Elite Parrots Club and get super coaching from the ‘Bird Lady’:
End of Article
—————————————
Sincerely,
Bryan
www.profitmart101.com
