We parrot owners are always looking for new things to feed our birds. After all, a varied diet is the key to a happy and healthy parrot! Including a range of different foods ensures your feathered pet gets all the nutrients it needs and helps prevent it from getting bored. Here's a fun idea to try that doesn't require you to be a kitchen wizard: birdie bread!

What is birdie bread?

If you have some experience with parrots, you're probably aware that bread isn't the best for our birds. Sure, they can have a few toast crumbs, but you shouldn't feed "human" bread on a daily basis!

What your parrot can eat is special birdie bread. Made with nutritious flour types, veg, fruit, and other parrot-safe ingredients, this base recipe is super easy to make at home and yields a healthy treat your parrot will love. It's free of chemicals and preservatives, and you'll know exactly what's in it.

Why make bread for your parrot?

So why should you go through the effort of preparing birdie bread for your parrot? Well, we've already mentioned that a varied diet is extremely important. A parrot fed only pellets (or worse: only seeds) can end up suffering from malnutrition.

Food is also a form of enrichment for parrots. Imagine having to eat the same thing out of the same bowl every day of your life! That's why introducing something different, like homemade parrot bread, helps prevent boredom. You can even up the stakes a little by presenting the bread in different ways, like in a foraging toy.

The advantages of birdie bread don't end here. Another factor that makes it a great choice is that it's a handy way to sneakily make your parrot eat some foods it might otherwise not be willing to try.

Some say parrots are like toddlers, and when it comes to food, this definitely applies: they can be loath to try new, healthy things like vegetables. The solution? Hide the healthy stuff in a treat they can't resist!

Since we've never met a parrot that doesn't go nuts for bread, this is the perfect option.

Should I Buy Or DIY?

Many parrot food brands sell bags of pre-mixed birdie bread ingredients. All you have to do is add oil, egg and water, and then just pop the mix in the oven to bake the bread. Handy and quick!

There are loads of different brands with varying healthy ingredients to choose from. Our favourites include:

1. Harrison's Bird Bread Mix Omega Organic Parrot Treat
2. Harrison's Bird Bread Mix - Original - Organic Parrot Treat
   

All this being said, making healthy bread for your parrot at home is a breeze. You don't have to be good at baking (it's absolutely OK if it turns out ugly!), and there's a good chance you'll have all the ingredients at home already.

Making your own birdie bread is cheaper and allows you to control exactly what you feed your bird. Below, let's have a look at the ingredients you can include.

Birdie Bread Ingredient Ideas

You can make your parrot bread as simple or complicated as you want, but the base ingredients stay the same. Luckily, they're all basic and you've probably got everything in your pantry already.

Flour

I mean plain flour here, not a bread mix. White flour is not the best option as it's not very nutritious, but there are plenty of other options:

• Whole wheat flour
• Corn flour
• Oat flour
• Spelt flour
• Amaranth flour
• Chickpea flour
• Buckwheat flour

You can find most of these at your local health food store. As long as it's just flour with no added ingredients, you're good to go. Heck, you can even blitz parrot pellets to a powder in a blender to make your own "flour"!

Fruit & veg

Fresh vegetables and fruits should make up a sizeable portion of your parrot's diet, so if you're making birdie bread, including some fresh produce is a no-brainer.

Anything you can grate or mash from the list of parrot-safe vegetables and parrot-safe fruits is great. Try apple, carrot, cooked sweet potato or pumpkin, banana, zucchini, corn, peas, and much more. Mixed frozen berries work well to add a big burst of colour and nutrients.

Egg

Most birdie bread recipes use egg as a binder. Parrots can eat eggs, after all, and a bit of extra protein in their diet from time to time is not a bad idea. This especially applies to laying hens.

If you don't want to use real egg, you can use an egg replacement like a flax or chia egg (soaked in water).

Oil

A little bit of oil helps prevent your birdie bread from going rock hard. It's also good for your parrot, as our birds do need a small amount of fat in their diets.

I like to use coconut oil or extra virgin olive oil, but any vegetable oil (aside from avocado) should work just fine.

Baking powder?

You don't have to use baking powder in bread for your parrot. It's fine if it comes out dense and crunchy, as our birds tend to love crumbly foods anyway.

However, you can opt to add one teaspoon of baking powder, as long as it's free of salt and aluminium.

Extras

You can jazz up a basic birdie bread with all sorts of healthy extras. Just make it different every time, so your bird never gets bored with it!

Here are some ideas:

• Stir in some unsweetened apple sauce
• Use bird-safe spices like cayenne and ginger
• Sprinkle oats or seeds on top as garnish
• Add crushed eggshell or cuttlebone for extra calcium
• Mix in a small amount of chopped almonds or walnuts

Below, let's have a look at a basic birdie bread recipe you can follow and jazz up to your liking.

Homemade Birdie Bread