Making your own food for your budgie is a good way to provide your pet with better nutrition without spending a lot of money on store-bought products. However, without ideas about the right foods to make, you may find it hard to come up with a good treat for your little friend. Luckily, this guide will help you out.
Below, we’ll share with you some of the best homemade food recipes for your budgie. These recipes are a source of key nuttiest for your budgie, including minerals and vitamins, etc. Some recipes involve mixing up ingredients into highly nutritious treats while at the same time being tasty and flavorful for your budgie.
Let’s get into the list right away…
5 Budgie food recipes you can prepare easily:
Below, we have outlined some top recipes that are easy to prepare. Some of them don’t even require any cooking. Here are the top homemade budgie food recipes:
1. Sweet potato bird balls
This is one of the easiest homemade recipes to make for your budgie. However, keep in mind that it’s high in sugar, so you shouldn’t feed it daily to your budgies. Nonetheless, it makes a healthy and tasty snack when fed to budgies occasionally.
Ingredients:
- 1 large sweet potato
- 1 banana
- 1 cup diced apples
- ½ cup raisins
- 1 cup thawed frozen mixed vegetables
- 1½ cups cornflakes, quick-cooking oatmeal, granola, or other similar cereals
Instructions:
Step 1. Make holes through the sweet potato with the help of a fork or paring knife. Cook the sweet potatoes in microwave at high power until it becomes tender (this should take 5-9 minutes).
Be sure to turn the sweet potatoes halfway through the cooking process. Now remove the potato from the microwave and give it to cool down.
Step 2. Peel the potato and then put it into a large mixing bowl. Add the apples raisins, bananas, and mixed vegetables. Mix all these ingredients with the help of an electric mixer (high speed) until the entire mixture becomes thoroughly combined and the veggies are reduced into tiny bits.
Step 3. Grab a baking sheet and line it with waxed or parchment paper.
Step 4. Roll the mixture into balls of approx. marble size and put them on the baking sheet. You can feed your budgie a few of them and then put the rest (while inside the baking sheet) into the freezer to get them completely frozen.
Step 5. Finally, transfer your balls into resalable plastic bag after they’re frozen. And make sure you defrost the balls in a microwave for about 10 seconds before you feed them to your pet birds.
2. Seed balls
Seeds are a favorite food for wild and captive budgies. The good news is that you can come up with homemade seed balls for your budgie and save yourself a lot of cash you may need to spend on seed balls at the stores.
Ingredients:
- 1 cup dried fruit, no additives
- 1 cup rolled oats
- 1/2 cup quinoa
- 1/2 cup birdseed mix
- 1/2 cup bird pellets
- 1 tablespoon peanut butter, 100% natural
- 1 or 2tbsp honey or agave syrup
Instructions:
Step 1. Put all the bird pellets, dried fruits, and rolled oats into a blender or food processor
Step 2. Combine the resulting mixture with the rest of the ingredients in a large mixing bowl.
Step 3. Grease your hands using bird-safe oil. This will make it easier to create the balls while preventing the mess from spreading.
Step 4. Create seed ball from the mixture. Each ball should be around 1/2 to 1 inch depending on the size of your parakeet.
Step 5. Now put the balls on parchment paper.
Step 6. Preheat your oven to 325 degrees F and then bake your balls until they turn light brown (the baking time will depend on the size of balls you create, so be sure to keep an eye on them).
Step 7. Finally, give the seed balls time to cool down and then put them in an airtight container.
3. Popped grains
Budgies will also love popped grains as long as you don’t salt or sweeten them. You can use not only corn but a variety of other poppable grains including Amaranth, wheat, quinoa, wild rice, and sorghum.
You can cook this bird food using stove popping or air popping method.
The air-popping method is the safest as it requires no oil. For this method, you can use a popper machine that doesn’t use oil or use your microwave.
Put your grains into a bag and then put them into the microwave and wait until the popping has slowed down and they’re done.
If you go the stove popping way, then make sure you use as less oil as possible (just enough to cover the pan bottom. We recommend using sunflower or canola oil since it doesn’t burn at high temperatures).
And don’t use non-stick cookware as it’s known to produce poisonous fumes for your pet birds.
Heat the oil at medium heat. Once the oil is good to go, add a single layer of your grains and cover the pan. Keep tossing it over the heat to prevent charring. When the popping sound stops, the gains are done. Let them cool and serve them to your budgies.
4. Budgie bread recipe
Since you can’t offer your budgies the normal bread humans consume, why not make your little friends a nutritious bread customized for them? This is how you do it…
Ingredients:
- ½ cup whole meal flour
- ½ cup maize floor
- 2 eggs
- 1 large carrot, grated
- 2 tsp baking powder
- 1 tbsp. finely chopped spring greens, spinach, or carrot tops
- 2 tbsp. flax sunflower seeds, and millet
- 2tbsp pureed pear or apple
- 170ml clean water
Directions:
Step 1. Grind the eggshells into tiny pieces. Grind the seeds as well for a few seconds so they can release some oil.
Step 2. Beat the eggs and mix them with the shells, seeds greens, apples, and grated carrots.
Step 3. Combine the different floors plus baking powder and then fold them into your egg mix.
Step 4. Form your mixture into a dough, and be sure to add some maize floor if it feels slack or water if it feels too stiff.
Step 5. Transfer the ball dough to a floured baking tray and use your palm to flatten it all the way up to around 5cm inch thick.
Step 6. Bake it at 200 degrees C for approx. 30 minutes. You can check if your bird bread is cooked by inserting a skewer into the middle of the load.
If it’s clean, it means your bread is done cooking. But if it has mixture sticking to it, you should give your bread a few more minutes.
Step 7. When the bread is done, cut it into small squares and put them in the fridge. If you want, you can also defrost them, but keep in mind they’ll be quite crumbly when you defrost them.
5. Green smoothie
If you have baby budgies, you can prepare them with a green smoothie. This is the perfect summer refreshment for your parakeets and it’s pretty easy to prepare as explained below.
Ingredients:
- 2 peeled bananas
- 1/2 mango, peeled & pitted
- 1/2 cup pellet crumbles
- bright light Swiss chard
- chopped Brussel sprouts
- Apple cranberry fruit juice, no additives or food colors
- Clean water
Directions:
Step 1. Soak the pellets in water until they obtain a consistency similar to that of oatmeal
Step 2. Put the resulting mush into a blender and add all the remaining ingredients. Put the juice plus little water and blend into a smoothie.
Step 3. And your smoothie is ready to serve!
FAQs:
You should only give raw vegetables to your budgies as they’re more nutritious in that form. Cooking removes important minerals and vitamins.
You shouldn’t feed your budgie human food as it is usually prepared using a lot of oil, salt, fat, sugar, etc. which can affect the parakeet’s delicate system and can lead to digestive issues, weight gain, and other health problems.
Yes, your budgie can eat cooked rice without any issues. Cooked rice, including brown rice, white rice, or black rice is a good source of carbohydrates for your pet birds. Just make sure you prepare it correctly, without adding any salt, and serve it when cold.
Final Verdict
That’s it for our guide to the best homemade foods for your budgies that are easy to prepare. The recipes we have shared in this guide are highly nutritious and will provide your parakeet with the necessary nutrients its body needs for healthy growth. The recipes are also tasty and flavorful and your budgie will love them. Follow the steps we’ve outlined for each recipe to ensure you prepare the foods safely and correctly for your little friends.
