Raw Buckwheat / Quinoa

Peter van Steenis

Regular Member
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Hey peeps,

I wanted to make a couple days worth of fruit and vegi mix and I got a bag of biological buckwheat and bag of quinoa.

I’m reading alot about parrots liking them uncooked (the quinoa has already been uncoated). I can’t find a clear answer about if they need to be cooked/sprouted.

Is it safe to add these two raw to a mix in small amounts or do you HAVE to cook/sprout them? Curious to see If our Tommy likes them raw.
 
We always use cooked quinoa to the bean & pulse mix that we prepare for our birds. It doesn't take long - just a quick soak in boiling water from a kettle and they are done.
 
We always use cooked quinoa to the bean & pulse mix that we prepare for our birds. It doesn't take long - just a quick soak in boiling water from a kettle and they are done.

Ah oke I’ll just start soaking them then and look at getting some bottles to start sprouting too!
 
We normally get the mixed bags of white, red and black quinoa. The birds don't seem to favour any particular type - it all disappears. It goes into a bean & pulses mix that gets prepared and then frozen in little zip lock bags. We zap a portion in the microwave, then mix it with a finely chopped fruit and veg mix. It started as being a mix for our budgies, but our Eclectus and Jardine love it too, even though they already get roughly chopped fruit and veg as part of their daily diet.
 
We normally get the mixed bags of white, red and black quinoa. The birds don't seem to favour any particular type - it all disappears. It goes into a bean & pulses mix that gets prepared and then frozen in little zip lock bags. We zap a portion in the microwave, then mix it with a finely chopped fruit and veg mix. It started as being a mix for our budgies, but our Eclectus and Jardine love it too, even though they already get roughly chopped fruit and veg as part of their daily diet.

Ah you just put it in the micro for a couple seconds then? Doesnt that kill alot of vitamins etc? I am gonna make a big batch too soon and was thinking to just let it defrost overnight and put it in his bowl before work. Thought freezing stuff also depends on what you put in the mix. Cucumber or zuccini will get very mushy xd

Though you just freeze the bean and pulse mix separately. Not better to defrost that in the fridge too instead of micro?
 
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The bean & pulses mix is cooked and prepared as if you were going to serve it fresh, but then we make individual portions and freeze them. Each day, we take one or two portions out of the freezer and put it in the microwave just long enough to thaw it. It is normally quite warm at that stage, but I don't think it will lose any of its goodness. Once it has been mixed with finely chopped fruit & veg (from the 'fridge), it is at the right temperature to serve. We don't freeze the fruit & veg mix as some of the fruit (depending on what we have put in there - it varies) can turn to mush when it defrosts. If it is kept in the 'fridge, it keeps its consistency and we make the fruit and veg mix every 2 or 3 days.

We often add cooked sweet potato or butternut squash to the mix - it is cooked until soft in a small bowl of water in the microwave, then mashed and added to the mix.

Remember that this started as a mix for our budgies - small beaks - but all our birds love it. If we were just giving it to our larger birds, the chop would not be as fine. They know that we will serve it after we have had our evening meal and they get quite excited waiting for it.
 
Sounds like a good mix. I do the same with the fruit and vegi's. Haven't frozen any yet and at the moment I make a tiny batch every evening. But only just got the quinoa and buckwheat so I'll cook that too and mix them together to freeze it in portions.
I'll start sprouting pea's and buckwheat etc too to add to the mix.

We have a Derbyan and I cut the vegi's and fruit fine too. Probably too fine and more for like you said, a budgie sized bird. I'm gonna give it a try with a bit less fine cut mix :)

Only difference is that we give it in the morning and pellets in the evening. Though he is still a bit picky about the pellets :p for now we try to mix that with some seeds (no sunflower seeds though).
 
I don't think it matters too much if it is cut fine, but it can get very messy ;) Jardine Jessie lets me clean her beak, but the other birds won't let us do that, so we just have to let them wipe their faces wherever they choose :rolleyes:

Edit: A finely cut mix and you can introduce new foods that the birds "accidently" eat. They are more inclined to take larger pieces once they've had a taste.
 
Haha I love it when they do that. Looks so cute. Our Derbyan is slowly getting out of his shell too and try all the different foods we give him in his mix so far. Though ive seen a couple blueberries on the floor xD. This morning he was hanging almost upside down on this rope swing biting away on it after he ate a bit. So guess that swing has some food pieces on it haha
 
Yes, seed is by far the easiest and cleanest food you can give birds, but on its own it just doesn't give them the minerals and vitamins that they need. Seed alone is boring too. Once you get a bird eating all of the foods that it should have, it is like the difference between eating to survive and fine dining :)
 
Yes, seed is by far the easiest and cleanest food you can give birds, but on its own it just doesn't give them the minerals and vitamins that they need. Seed alone is boring too. Once you get a bird eating all of the foods that it should have, it is like the difference between eating to survive and fine dining :)

Yea we were very happy he took to the fresh food a day after we got him. He had a bowl with what looked like 60% sunflower seeds at the breeder. Now we only use a mix of non-sunflower seeds to try to get him on pellets for his evening meal. He isn’t just surviving anymore at least ^^
 
I am looking at starting to sprout some tonight or a basic one at least with quinoa and buckwheat but i also got a pack of dried green peas i want to add to the sprouting mix.

I know parrots shouldnt get salt so im looking at that closely. Now I saw that the pack of 500grams of dried green peas has 0.03g salt per 100gr.

Is this a neglectable amount or do i have to get ones with absolutely 0 salt in them? Cause even a biological bag seems to have that amount it :/
 
Saying that a sprouting bottle will prob not have 100 grams of peas in it so per gram that would be 0,0003gr salt per gram peas.

Surely thats not dangerous anymore?
 
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