If you’ve been a parrot parent for a while, you’ll know that keeping our feathered friends’ tummies full of nutritious food can be a lot of work. Most of us have caught on to the fact that a dry seed mix won’t cut it, but feeding only pellets will have these smart birds bored out of their minds within a week! Plenty of vitamin-packed vegetables and colorful fruits are the way to go.
If you’re tired of spending your days chopping produce, we’ve got the solution: freeze drying. Freeze-dried parrot foods are catching on fast, and there are several good reasons for this.
What is freeze-dried parrot food?
Freeze drying is a dehydration process also known as cryodessication. Normally, we associate dehydration with heat—think chewy raisins, dried mango snacks, or fruit leather. Freeze drying, however, is done using cold.
As the name suggests, food is frozen in a special freeze-drying device, after which the air pressure is lowered. This pulls out all the moisture through sublimation, resulting in a super-crunchy, brittle end product that can be stored almost indefinitely if it’s kept dry. It can be eaten as-is or rehydrated by adding liquid.
Freeze drying works for pretty much any food you can think of, from strawberries to ice cream (yes, really!). It’s a popular technique for military and astronaut rations, plus very handy for folks who like to hike and camp out in nature. After all, freeze-dried food weighs almost nothing and retains most of its nutrients. Full, high-quality meals can be created easily by rehydrating it. Freeze-dried candy recently became popular, and even the pharmaceutical industry uses cryodessication.
The possibilities for freeze-dried parrot food are (almost literally!) endless. From veggie mixes to pre-made chop to exotic fruits: if your parrot can eat it, it can most likely be freeze-dried.
The question is not ‘what foods can be freeze-dried?’, it’s ‘what foods CAN’T be freeze-dried?’!
Advantages of freeze-dried parrot food
If you’ve had freeze-dried foods before (like those little crunchy strawberry pieces often included in muesli mixes), you’ll probably understand why they make such a great option for our feathered pets:
● Keep their color, which parrots love
● Retain almost all their nutrients
● Suitable for crunch lovers
● Also great for water dunkers who like their food wet
● Super-long shelf life, just keep dry
● No preservatives or additives like sugar
● Endless variation, including exotic and out-of-season produce
As a 2020 scientific study notes: “Vacuum freeze-drying of biological materials is one of the best methods of water removal, with final products of highest quality”. We’re inclined to agree!
Here at A Bird Toy, we pop everything from pre-made chop to every fruit and veggie you can think of in our freeze dryer. Parrots can be very picky, but there’s a freeze-dried snack for everyone. The endless variety ensures mealtime will never be boring for your bird again, which helps prevent behavioral issues like excessive vocalization (screaming, basically), aggression, and feather plucking.
Tip: Rehydrated freeze-dried foods can take on a sort of goopy texture. This is great for parrots with beak issues or that struggle with hard textures for other reasons.
Freeze-dried vs. dehydrated
As mentioned, freeze drying is kind of the opposite of dehydrating, which is done using heat. Dehydrated parrot snacks are also popular; our birds tend to love crunchy dried chili peppers (which don’t taste spicy to them, by the way!), chewy fruit bits and rehydrated dried vegetable mixes.
Dehydrating is a great option, especially because it can be done at home. Freeze drying in your own kitchen, on the other hand, is not realistic in most cases, as the equipment is a lot more expensive than a basic $50 dehydrator. But if you’re OK with store-bought, freeze-dried is usually the superior option thanks to how well it maintains nutrients and color.
Additionally, some parrots don’t enjoy the chewy texture of dehydrated foods, while the majority loves the crunch that comes with freeze-dried. Of course, fresh is best, but spoilage happens so quickly it can be a real headache. That’s why we recommend always keeping some freeze-dried snacks on hand for your flock.
How to use
As we’ve mentioned, there are as many freeze drying options as there are different foods. No surprise, then, that freeze-dried parrot food can be offered to our birds in loads of different ways.
Just offering bits of your parrot’s favorite freeze-dried fruit and vegetables works fine as a snack or training treat, but you can also try the following:
- Sprinkle over pellets or chop to make them more colorful and varied
- Rehydrate (remove from food bowl after 2 hours to prevent spoilage)
- Hide in a foraging box or toy
- Mix with dehydrated foods, seeds, and other items for an exciting foraging mix
If you’re not rehydrating your bird’s freeze-dried food, be sure to keep some water next to their food bowl. Most parrots like a drink after crunchy, dry foods like these; some even like to dunk them in water, just as they sometimes do with pellets. Just let the chef do their work as they please!
Freeze-dried fruits and vegetables can make up around 10-20% of your parrot’s diet. The rest should mostly consist of a complete formulated solution, either freeze-dried like our tasty Bird Bites Whole Balance mix or a high-quality extruded pellet. Try to avoid low-quality pellets with a high percentage of fillers like corn, which are unfortunately still pretty common, and be sure to supplement with fresh produce, (sprouted) seeds, and cooked grains. You can even offer occasional small amounts of protein in the form of boiled egg, mealworms, and the like.
Tip: Some parrots really like bird-safe herbal teas. Why not try rehydrating freeze-dried foods in some yummy tea rather than plain water?
Conclusion
If you’re worried your feathered friends aren’t getting enough variety in their diet or just want to make mealtime more fun, freeze-dried parrot food may be just the thing for your flock. Colorful, nutritious, and endlessly varied, these dried foods are about to be your bird’s new favorite snack.