Thursday, July 22, 2010

Vegetable extravaganza

Yesterday was my weekly farmers' market trip. I bought a ton of stuff as the harvest is really heating up around here. Thomas was busy preparing the vegetables for human consumption, while I was offering samples to the parrots and photographing their reaction. Not exactly an equal distribution of labor!

I had purchased basil, so while Thomas was making pesto, he gave me some basil blossoms for the parrots. Max and Stella were very interested, though I suspect they were just ripping the leaves off and not ingesting anything:Also, Stella was not interested until she saw Max try some!Next were little grape tomatoes. Thomas gave some to Max. Her eye is pinning here; she is very interested:
Rocky saw Thomas handing this out, and he wanted some, so he went down into begging posture:The first attempt by Thomas to give him a grape tomato resulted in Rocky dropping it. You can see it on the left of the picture. It almost looks like one of Thomas's fingers!
But the second attempt was successful:
Thomas placed some of the vegetables on the floor as a temporary holding place. He had so many things going on at once, he'd run out of counter space! Stella came over to investigate this zucchini:
Max also enjoyed the zucchini:As did Steve. Look at the size difference in just a minute or so:And a little video of him eating. I know this is probably very boring, but when he does normal things like this, it makes me so happy!


Stella then moved on to a cucumber:
After she was done:
It didn't go to waste -- Thomas cleaned it up and took the slices for lunch today.

Corn is always a favorite:
Thomas made dinner, sauteed vegetables placed on a bed of pureed cauliflower. It was delicious, even though it may not sound like it! Once the pan had cooled down, we both left the room for a minute, only to return to find this:Dessert was a honeydew melon. Rocky loved it!
Here is a video of him eating it. I think it is really funny that when he has something that he really likes, he keeps his top beak on it while he eats, as though then Thomas can't pull the fork away:


The caiques also ate vegetables; they were just in the living room so I didn't take pictures of them.

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

I came across your blog about a week ago and have been visiting it ever since. Your Parrot's seem like quite the characters. I'm especially interested in Rocky as I just recently brought a Severe Macaw into our family. My husband and I are first time Parrot owners. I have done research but have a LOT of questions and want to make sure we are doing the right things to build trust with Samba. He had a previous owner and I suspect he was ignored quite a bit. he is 10 years old. I can see you are a busy lady but was wondering if I might ask you a couple of questions.. Please feel free to let me know if you are too busy to respond, I would certainly understand : ) anyhow I love your blog and will continue to check in to see what your flock is up to next.

Kindly,

Lisa Bellamy

Mary said...

Hi Lisa,

Feel free to ask any questions in the comments (of any post, even if it's not relevant) and I will respond in a blog post!

I must say that my initial inclination when I hear someone has brought a severe macaw into their house is to offer condolences...I am just kidding, mostly!

In my experience, severe macaws are very resilient once they're in a good situation again (Rocky was in a back room and completely neglected for 6 years -- you'd never know it now).

Good luck with your severe, and please, ask away!!!

Anonymous said...

Thank you! Well I’ll start with my 2 biggest questions/concerns. Samba will come out of his cage and stand on the edge of the cage door. If we don’t immediately come to visit he will make a bit of noise and start bobbing his head up and down. He really acts like he wants to interact with us. Once we come to see him he will dance when we sing, and jabber with us for a few minutes. Then is seems out of nowhere he gets very anxious. Although we are not attempting to reach for him, he starts yelling “come here Samba step up” right after he says this he will pin his eyes and begin biting his legs, then go back in his cage and appears freighted. It seems obvious that he is anxious that we are going to make him step up. We are not as I tried it once and was bitten and the same with my husband. I am trying to watch his cues to see what makes him uncomfortable so I can back off before he gets upset however it really seems to come out of now where. Well my question is since he appears so upset and is saying STEP UP!! at the same time that he runs and bites himself, should we not attempt to get him to step up? He does take fruit and vegetables from my hand very gently (but very leery). I had read a bit about clicker training with a target. When I came within 5 feet of his cage with a chop stick he went ballistic and was visibly terrified. Now I’m not so sure that target training is the thing to do. Lastly- he often will hang from the top of the cage with his beak while fanning his tail feathers and stretching his wings a bit. Would this be a happy display or does he want me to back off when he does this? I think this turned in to more than two questions :) I really appreciate you taking the time to respond!

Lisa

belovedparrot said...

Lisa -- how long have you had Samba? It may be just too soon for him?

Mary -- Boring? Boring?????

Are you kidding? I try to check things out here every day. I often think of Steve and want to see/know how he's doing. As usual I see all your parrots are starving again. (grin) I sure wish I could eat like that.