For some of us, getting our birds to eat healthy is easy and we never have to find ways to get them to choose broccoli over sunflower seeds. But for those parrots that are more based in reality, we’ve had to find ways to get them to eat the foods we know will benefit them the most. One method that many parrot owners have found useful is creating and serving chop to their birds. In this post, we’ll explore what chop is, how to choose the right ingredients, how to store it, and why it can be so good for our birds.

Chop is an Excellent Way to Provide Balanced Nutrition

Having our birds on a quality, pelleted diet is important. A pelleted diet provides our birds with an excellent foundation for their nutrition by providing a balanced source of nutrients, and so it should make up the majority of their diet. But pellets are just part of what a bird needs to be healthy. They should also be provided with fresh foods like vegetables as well as some nuts, seeds, fruit, and grains. Chop is a general term that is used to describe vegetables and other fresh foods that are cut into small pieces and mixed together. People also add healthy grains and things like seeds and nuts to the mix. By chopping the ingredients into very small pieces, you are helping to ensure your bird doesn’t pick out their favorite parts of the chop while leaving the more healthy, albeit less tasty parts, to sit in their bowl. Some people have advocated for a diet that is mostly made up of chop, but this isn’t ideal since it’s very difficult to determine the amount of nutrients a bird is getting from fresh foods. Pellet is reliable, balanced, and should always be the foundation of a bird’s diet unless your vet says otherwise.

It can be challenging to get our birds to eat whole, unprocessed foods if they aren’t used to them. It can also be difficult to make sure we are getting them everything they need each day - especially when most of us lead fairly busy lives. Even if we have a lot of time, it’s still difficult to provide a little of everything a bird needs every day. That’s why creating and serving chop is such a great option. It allows us a convenient way to offer a diversity of food every day. All we have to do is invest the time into creating a batch and then freeze it for convenient serving.

How to Choose the Right ingredients

There are many different kinds of parrots from all over the world. So, when determining what you want to put into your bird’s chop, you should take their species into consideration. By providing your bird with their species-specific nutritional needs, you are maximizing the benefits the chop will provide. Consulting with an avian vet is important before you start your bird on a new diet. Some birds might have special nutritional needs. For example, a bird that has lower calcium levels might need less of certain foods and more of another. That’s why it’s important to talk with your vet so they can help you choose what ingredients will be best for your specific bird. You also want to look up the foods you are considering and make sure that they are safe for parrot consumption. For example, never offer a bird avocado. Doing so can be deadly, and it’s only one type of food you will want to avoid. 

Just because we are mixing a lot of different ingredients together doesn’t mean that we can do so without some thought into what kind and how much of each of those foods we choose. In general, a bird should be eating more veggies than fruit and other foods high in sugar, fat, and carbohydrates. The idea behind chop is to provide it every day, and there are some foods we do not want to offer every day to our birds. Some nuts, seeds, and fruit are OK, but they should be provided in moderation (again, depending on the species and health of a bird).

In the next section, we’ll discuss some general guidelines in choosing which foods to incorporate into a daily chop and which ones to offer more as an occasional ingredient. Some foods need to be cooked before being added, so look everything up beforehand to make sure it is prepared safely. Keep in mind that some species have very specific dietary needs, such as Toucans, so take that into consideration and adjust accordingly.

Vegetables:

Vegetables should make up at least half of your chop mix. Always wash them thoroughly and consider chopping and adding those that have a higher water content separately so your chop doesn’t get too mushy. Balance out the types of veggies that you offer. For example, don't add in all leafy greens and leave out the other types. Different vegetables offer varying amounts and kinds of nutrients and you don't want to have too much of one and not enough of others.

Bright, colorful veggies like bell peppers, radishes, and carrots tend to offer a high amount of vitamin C - a very important vitamin in a bird’s diet. When it comes to greens, a few good options are kale, spinach, broccoli, and sprouted seeds. Interesting fact: because of their biology, parrots aren’t bothered by hot peppers. They aren’t affected by the effects of capsaicin like humans are. So, they won’t feel that burn on their tongue. They're also delicious.

You can buy frozen vegetables and use them in your chop, but be sure to defrost them properly before adding them in. Using fresh ingredients tends to be best as they will retain more of their nutrition, but sometimes buying frozen can be convenient if your choices are limited. You have many healthy options with vegetables, but as stated earlier, check to make sure they’re OK for your bird to eat and that they are cooked beforehand, if necessary, before you add them in.

Fruit:

Fruit should generally only make up a small amount of our bird’s diet, along with nuts and seeds (with the exception of some species). While occasional fruit can be good for our birds, it also has higher amounts of sugar than vegetables do. Instead of mixing fruit into all of your chop, consider instead cutting up a small amount and adding some occasionally. A good chop doesn’t need to contain fruit to be healthy, but it can add some pizzazz and can be enticing to a bird that might be hesitant to try new foods. You want to be careful that you don’t create a high-sugar chop mix, so just be aware of how much fruit you use should you decide to do so. Also be sure to avoid adding in pits and these are often not safe for our birds to eat.

As with vegetables, fruit should be washed before serving. 

Grains:

While grains can be added into a chop, it’s best to do so while keeping a healthy balance of carbohydrates in mind. Grains shouldn’t make up more than about 40 to 50 percent of a chop mix. You should also avoid refined grains such as white rice and aim to use whole grains like quinoa. Quinoa is one of the best grain options out there due to its nutritional content. Whole grain pasta can be used as well as brown rice in moderation. You can also add in raw oat groats.

Generally, grains should be cooked so that they are more easily digestible. In order to minimize sogginess, you should aim to undercook them just a bit (al dente'). Doing so will allow the grains to absorb some of the moisture from other foods without adding even more. Be sure to completely cool them before you add in your vegetables and other ingredients.

Nuts & Seeds:

Though commonly confused for one another, these foods are actually considered to be in different categories. For example, a nut can be a seed, but a seed can almost never be a nut! Many of them, however, given in moderation, can be a healthy part of a bird’s diet and can be added to chop on occasion.

Some healthy nut choices for our birds include hazelnuts, pecans, cashews, and walnuts just to name a few. It’s best to avoid peanuts. Peanuts are prone to mold/fungi which birds are very susceptible to. Nuts can be crushed and sprinkled on top of a bird’s chop or mixed in as a tasty, occasional treat.



Storing and Serving Chop

To benefit from the convenience of chop, you’ll want to create a batch and then freeze it so that you can take some out each day for your bird. When placing chop into individual servings, take into account how much your bird will need and the number of birds you have. Some birds like budgies might each only need a teaspoon or so per day while larger birds will require much more.

I like to buy resealable, small disposable baggies and add each day’s serving to them. I place those small bags into a larger one to help keep them sealed off. That way, all I have to do is grab one of the small ones, defrost it, and serve. Some people prefer to store their chop in the freezer using large reusable containers. While this can certainly be done, you are exposing the entire batch of chop to the air every time you open it, which might not be ideal.

If you are using small disposable bags for your chop, you can help rid it of excess moisture by draining the bag slowly by cutting and draining it over a bowl or cup. It doesn’t take much time at all to defrost. The water that is drained from the chop contains a lot of beneficial nutrients, so it can be added to other foods if you want to deliver some to your bird.

Did you know you can cook up some of our delicious Bird Street Bistro and add it into the occasional chop mix to create a fun, nutritious meal? Try it with one of our favorites, like the our Southern Feast mix!

A special thank you to those that I got much of my information for this post from. I'll link to them in the references section below. Providing our birds with an ideal diet can be confusing due to conflicting information online and in older publications. Keep your birds healthy by following up-to-date, reliable sources!

References:

Clark, Pamela. “Chop Mix: Perfect Nutritional Supplement or Popular Nutritional Disaster?” Pamela Clark, CPBC, 28 Dec. 2019, pamelaclarkonline.com/2018/08/29/chop-mix-perfect-nutritional-supplement-or-popular-nutritional-disaster/comment-page-1/.