# Chop! - Designed for birds, use for hedgies?



## Lilysmommy (Jan 7, 2009)

Posting this in the off topic section since it's primarily about birds. :lol: But I figured it might be something that could be adapted for hedgies as well, if anyone wanted to give it a try and see how it went over.

The wildlife shelter where I volunteer took in a Blue-Fronted Amazon parrot named Anna. She's been on a crappy generic parrot seed mix from the pet store for who knows how long and both I and the owner of the shelter, Louise, cringe when we look at it. Obviously we're anxious to get her diet fixed up as soon as we can. Louise is ordering Harrison's organic pellets, while I decided to take charge of the fresh part of her diet.

I've read on a parrot blog (http://www.parrotnation.com, written by Patricia Sund, a contributor to the Bird Talk magazine) about the concept of Chop. It's basically chopping up a ton of veggies and greens and grains, and mixing them all up together and freezing it in meal-sized portions in baggies. It takes awhile to make a batch of it (depending on how big the batch is), but when you're done, you have the fresh veggie part of your parrot's meal all set to go for a number of months (again, that depends on how big your batch is). It's a wonderful and easy way to make sure your birds get the fresh veggies they need in their diet, and also a great way to give them a huge variety of veggies every day that would be impractical to keep up by chopping up food on a day-to-day basis. Ever since reading about this idea on Patricia's blog, I've been itching to try it out. I was close to making it up for the birds at my work, but we're getting rid of most of them now, so Anna proved to be the perfect chance to try making Chop. Here's some pictures I took while I was making it -

All of my ingredients - watercress, dandelion greens, kale, broccoli, oatmeal, quinoa, whole wheat pasta shells, parsnips, daikon radish, turnips, red/orange/yellow/green peppers, zucchini, sweet potatoes, and carrots. I cooked the pasta and quinoa, but not the oatmeal - that was to soak up moisture from the veggies.









Bowls of nicely chopped veggies/greens!









Everything all mixed together.









And nicely bagged! 









This batch took about 6 hours to make, including shopping and washing the dishes. It was about 3 hours chopping everything up and getting it mixed together, and 2 hours to bag it all. It made 6 months worth of food for Anna (2 tablespoons per day), and after I reached the six month point in her portions, I switched to bigger sandwich baggies and started doubling the amount I put in, so I could keep those ones to take to work for the parakeets and rats.

The reason Chop works so well for birds is because with everything chopped up so small, it's hard for them to pick out what they want to eat and throw the rest on the floor. If they grab a favorite, say red peppers, they're likely to get other things stuck to it, like broccoli or kale. I took Anna's bags to the shelter today and we tried giving her some - she tried it right away and after we came back to check on her after awhile, found that she'd eaten almost all of the portion we'd given her. Very little thrown on the floor!  I consider all the work completely worth it for that moment!

Part of my reason for posting about it was simply to share because I'm still so excited about it. :lol: But I thought maybe the concept could work for hedgies as well - chop up veggies into tiny pieces and maybe leave bigger meat pieces to get their attention. The veggies could stick to the meat and when the hedgie eats the meat, they're getting those veggies too. I'm not sure if it'd work or not, but I have no way to test it. So if anyone does give the idea a try...Let me know how it goes!! And thanks if anyone actually reads all of this - I hope I'm not getting annoying with all of the off topic posts these last couple days.


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## Immortalia (Jan 24, 2009)

Just want to say that you are absolutely awesome. Followed your fb post as you were making the chop, I'm pretty sure my mom gives me the same weird looks too. I dragged her all over town today as I'm getting ready for my new kitty.  Already paid the adoption fee, so mother can't say no now!!! :lol:


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## Lilysmommy (Jan 7, 2009)

:lol: Our poor parents, being forced to deal with animal-crazy daughters. I can't wait to see pics of the new girl, I'm so glad you're taking her!  Tia didn't look too happy about the prospect of a new sister though. :lol:


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## Quinn (Apr 24, 2011)

If anyone does this for their hedgies let us know how it goes. I would like to try but I don't want to do all that effort and get rejected lol.


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## Lilysmommy (Jan 7, 2009)

Quinn said:


> If anyone does this for their hedgies let us know how it goes. I would like to try but I don't want to do all that effort and get rejected lol.


Good point! :lol: Though granted, if hedgie doesn't eat it, humans always could! Louise tried a bite of my Chop and said it tasted pretty good. XD Or perhaps if anyone does try this and they have other animals, such as dogs, it'd be a good idea to give it a try with dog-safe veggies. At least someone could still enjoy it. I was glad I used venison and beef (instead of chicken, which my dog is allergic to) back when I made my meatballs for Lily - she turned her nose up at them, but my dog thought they were the best thing to ever happen to her. :lol:


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## shetland (Sep 2, 2008)

Wow! A lot of work. But well worth it1 Even if little ones don't like it, it could be great seasoning on human food! How did you get the portion areas in the bags?


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## Lilysmommy (Jan 7, 2009)

Definitely worth it!  Do you mean how did I figure out portions? The avian vet I talked to (he was the vet I had for Lily, an awesome guy) suggested doing about a tablespoon per "meal" for Anna, so I put four tablespoons in each baggy to give two days' worth in each.


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## Rainy (Jul 27, 2011)

Kelsey, you're amazing.  Thank you so much for sharing this. This sounds like a great idea to add variety to hedgie diets and if worse comes to worse, you could certainly make a nice soup or stew with it. Could you link the article with ingredient portions, please? I love that it's freezable too. Just like a hedgie frozen dinner.  As soon as I figure out what Izzy's allergy is all about, I would love to try this with my babes.  Thank you so much for sharing that! You are such a blessing to all of us here. HUGS. <3


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## silvercat (Oct 24, 2008)

Lilysmommy said:


> Quinn said:
> 
> 
> > If anyone does this for their hedgies let us know how it goes. I would like to try but I don't want to do all that effort and get rejected lol.
> ...


I just recently started doing it. I cook the veggies with the mean slightly though so they're soft, use the food processor to chop it all up, then into the ice cube tray for single servings. viewtopic.php?f=6&t=17225


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## Lilysmommy (Jan 7, 2009)

Rainy said:


> Kelsey, you're amazing.  Thank you so much for sharing this. This sounds like a great idea to add variety to hedgie diets and if worse comes to worse, you could certainly make a nice soup or stew with it. Could you link the article with ingredient portions, please? I love that it's freezable too. Just like a hedgie frozen dinner.  As soon as I figure out what Izzy's allergy is all about, I would love to try this with my babes.  Thank you so much for sharing that! You are such a blessing to all of us here. HUGS. <3


<3! These are the two blog posts I used for ingredient ideas and general information - http://parrotnation.com/2010/08/08/chop-shot-by-shot/ and http://parrotnation.com/2010/11/24/autumn-chop/ . As far as how much of each veggie, I just kind of did about the same portions of each, no specific measurements - one small/medium head of broccoli, two zucchini, one big pepper or two smaller ones, etc. I ended up leaving out a bit of the huge sweet potato, and two of the four turnips. As far as I know, this is more or less how Patricia does it as well, rather than specifically portioning everything out. It works fine when making it for birds, since it's mostly a healthy supplement to fill in the holes and give them a fresh source of vitamins.



silvercat said:


> Lilysmommy said:
> 
> 
> > Quinn said:
> ...


I saw that post and it looks awesome! Also, it was a great idea to cook the veggies with the meat, so they get some of the flavor into them. I wonder if that would help other picky hedgies that love their meat.


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## silvercat (Oct 24, 2008)

Lilysmommy said:


> it was a great idea to cook the veggies with the meat, so they get some of the flavor into them. I wonder if that would help other picky hedgies that love their meat.


I think it probably would. I've tried to give Annabell veggies before. She would generally ignore them. I think the added flavour of the chicken & olive oil is the seller (though she is really good at picking the spinach out to avoid eating it. interestingly I added that post cooking the meat, so there's no "extra" flavoring)


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## Lilysmommy (Jan 7, 2009)

I did kind of the same thing with Lily, where I would mix a meat baby food with the veggie ones. As long as there was a meat in with it, she would eat the mix pretty happily. Hm...There may be hope yet for owners of carnivorous hedgies! :lol:


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