I make this for my pet birds. I have ten of them, so I make it in large batches. The recipe can be reduced – I’ll comment on that later. This can be made with many variations!

BIRD BREAD RECIPE

Grease two sheet cake pans or two jelly roll pans (or one of each) – I use a pump-up sprayer of olive oil. Note on pans: Teflon and other non-stick coatings can give off fumes that will kill birds – therefore I don’t use any non-stick pans for baking or cooking anything!

Measure into very large bowl, then mix evenly:
*6 cups flour & cornmeal {can be mostly cornmeal or up to half flour/half cornmeal}
*2 ˝ Tablespoons aluminum-free baking powder (Rumford brand)
˝ cup each:
*hulled millet
*hulled raw buckwheat
*steel-cut oats or rolled oats
*rolled barley flakes
*raw sunflower seeds, hulled
*˝-1 cup bird pellets (I use Tropicans brand)
*2-3 teaspoons of ground eggshell powder (for the calcium)

*10 oz. (approx.) frozen mixed, vegetables, thawed -- add and stir until well coated with the flour mixture.
*˝ can (15oz.) adzuki beans, mashed – add and mix into flour mixture until well coated.

Add:
*˝ - 1 can (15 oz.) pumpkin
*1 egg
*2 Tablespoons wheat germ oil or other vegetable oil (optional)
*Water, or water & orange juice mixed, enough to make a fairly thick batter (you don’t want it as runny as cake batter)

Spoon the mixture into the pans. If it’s too stiff to fill the pans smoothly, you may smooth it into the pans. Bake until golden brown on top and done through. I usually use 375*F, and it takes about 35-40 minutes. Could also be made in muffins or mini-muffins.

Cool on racks. Cut into squares when still slightly warm. Keep in the refrigerator, no more than 2-3 days worth. Freeze any extra, and thaw in the refrigerator overnight when needed.

Variations:

The recipe can be cut in half or thirds. The amounts of grains, seeds, veggies, etc. are not exact, but the total volume of additions are about the maximum for the amount of batter to hold together. If you want to add more varieties of grains, reduce the amounts of all the others. You can substitute wheat berries or flakes for one of the others. Pine nuts or raw pumpkin seeds (hulled) are other possibilities. Cooked rice and/or lentils could be added or substituted.

I have used pre-packaged cornbread mix, spelt flour, kamut flour, whole wheat flour, blue cornmeal, yellow cornmeal, and polenta in various amounts and combinations over the years. I don’t recommend using all pre-packaged cornbread mix – the enriched flour part of it is too high in something, iron if I remember correctly.

One to three very ripe bananas can be mashed and added to the batter. Never add avocado -- poisonous to birds. Dehydrated “refried” pinto beans can be substituted for the adzuki beans. Other beans can be used, but my birds seem to prefer the adzuki beans.

Julie may have comments too. This is my version, but she’s made her own versions in the past. I feed them this bird bread in the morning, along with any fruits and greens that I have that they’ll eat. The parrot has a large, strong beak, so she gets the harder, crunchier edge pieces. The smaller birds get the softer inner parts, crumbled slightly to make it easier for them to pick apart. If I had chickens (some day I might!), I would give them the remains after the pets are done. Would be a good food for worms too! :-)

-- Anonymous, December 03, 2001

Answers

Geeze, no wonder you didn't want to throw it out. I usually just let my bird eat off the table (when my husband isn't around) Eggs over easy can get messy though, he usually walks right through them.

-- Anonymous, December 03, 2001

I plan on having long lived, healthy birds! They don't like most of the stuff I eat.

-- Anonymous, December 04, 2001

Joy,

I never did understand Dane County's rule about needing 5 acres to have a chicken when you can have parrots. We had many chickens roosters and one conure. I'll give you one guess who was loudest. I would sneak down to the kitchen in the morning and try to get the wood stove going without waking anyone in the family. That darn bird would start screaming "What are you doing What are you doing" at the top of his lungs!!!!!

We bought one mile over the Dane County line to avoid some of their silly zoning rules.

We gave our bird to a wonderful bird lover when we left, much to David's joy and my sadness!!!!

Kim

-- Anonymous, December 05, 2001

What kind of conure did you have, Kim? The loudest I ever heard was a Patagonian. My Sun, Lily, sounds pretty loud indoors, but it never seems to carry too far to the outside, even with the windows open. Now, if someone kept a MACAW on their patio, that really would be a noise disturbance.

Lily doesn't scream as much as she used to. She is happiest where she can see the other birds, and I think that cuts down on the screaming. Of course, when Gwynn, one of the male cockatiels, starts singing, she thinks she has to scream along. Those two were babies together and have some sort of weird "sibling" vibe going on -- sort of love/hate, just like kids! I was worried that Mariah, the grey parrot, would learn to scream just like Lily, but she apparently doesn't like that sound herself. She's been know to tell Lily "No!" and "shhhhh" -- not that Lily paid any attention. Don't know if I ever mentioned, almost all of my birds used to be Julie's. I got a number of them when she had to disperse her flock due to severe allergies. Happily, she can spend SOME time with them without bad effects, so she gets to see them whenever she comes to visit.

This recipe could be modified to be more "economical" -- depends on where your priorities are. Even though I make this especially for the birds, it's as if they were eating "my" food, as it is all human quality. If you wanted to feed outdoors birds, I think you could make a cornbread base, throw in some mixed veggies, and some outdoor bird seed, bake it up and serve. I use all hulled seeds because the larger birds might eat them whole and choke on or inhale the seed hull. Small birds, such as the songbirds that come to feeders, will pick out the seeds and hull them themselves. I'm sure the bread would attract squirrels too -- perhaps not desirable!

-- Anonymous, December 05, 2001

We had a handfed baby sun conure in work once. I loved that bird. It would roll on it's back to play with me with it's feet. My husband came to the store and I said, "I love this bird...but don't buy it for me. (It was Christmas time) But I love this bird." I knew they screech and my husband is not an animal person. (He doesn't even like the parakeet and that bird keeps trying to go by him) By the way, the people that bought him gave him up because of his screeching but got him back, because of his screeching. I named him Baby. I loved that bird...

-- Anonymous, December 05, 2001

I've heard Suns called "the perfect shoulder bird", and as long as they don't screech in your ear, they certainly are! Lily is very sweet and gentle as well as loud and demanding.

-- Anonymous, December 06, 2001