can birds eat caraway seeds

As good parrot parents, we’re always looking for new foods to offer to our feathered friends in order to add enrichment and keep their diet rich in nutrients. Parrot Essentials offers plenty of ideas for novel foods for parrots our blog (see the posts on herbs for parrots, sprouting seeds for parrots, foraging for parrots and more). Let’s expand that idea list and talk spices!

Keep reading for everything you need to know about which household spices you might have lying around can also be offered to your parrot.

We can now include canary seeds on the list, which will undoubtedly surprise you. Yes, canary seeds for human beings.

The group claimed that in addition to being used for cereal, the new canary seeds can be used to make flour for cookies, cakes, breads, and other products. Additionally, this new product is packed with other nutrients and has more protein than most other grains.

Would you “Tweet” about this new canary seed “grain” or bake breads made with canary seed flour if you were gluten intolerant?

Sunflower seeds. Sesame seeds. Caraway seeds. Rye seeds. Pumpkin seeds. Surely, there must be an edible seed for everyone’s taste. Un-hulled sunflower seeds are a baseball player’s delight. Sesame seeds, caraway, and rye enhance a range of breads, such as bagels. And roasted pumpkin seeds are a Halloween treat for many.

Due to the fact that eating grains, such as rye, barley, and wheat, can cause gastrointestinal distress and other symptoms in 3 million Americans with celiac disease, researchers set out to discover new gluten-free alternatives. They found that the current gluten-free diet of rice, teff, corn, buckwheat, sorghum, and quinoa could be supplemented with special canary seeds.

Why would you give spices to your parrot?

At this point, you may be wondering why we would give our parrot spices. After all, spices are typically not the healthiest foods by definition. Certain spices are made of a plant’s seeds, roots, or fruits; others are just the plant’s bark or pods. They’re usually dried, further reducing their nutritiousness.

Still, we believe that adding spices to a parrot’s diet is a great idea. Here are a few reasons to consider:

• Parrots are capable of tasting what they are eating, even though their sense of taste isn’t as developed as humans’. Therefore, you can add spices to food to make it more appealing to parrots.
• Spices can be used to enhance the color of food—turmeric can turn food yellow, paprika can turn food red, etc. ).
• Spices have a lot of health benefits, but they should only be used sparingly if possible (though there is a dearth of research on the benefits specifically for birds).
• Above all, we think that whole spices make a delicious and entertaining combination. Many parrots enjoy crushing, dissecting, and tasting them. For our captive birds, this means that spices present a great potential source of enrichment.

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