Enjoying a Fan palm nut

When I received my shipment of fresh palm nuts yesterday I tried giving a Fan palm nut to Shade and Zuri.

While Shade, being her usual pig self, took it with great enthusiasm, Zuri was a bit more cautious as he always is with "new" things. Once he saw how Shade was just tearing into hers he became more intrigued but of course had to have the one Shade was holding, not the one I tried offering over and over again...

I took some pictures in between the takes of Shade flying from one place to the other, trying to get away from Zuri.

Fresh palm nuts

I recently made another "experimental delivery" of palm nuts from The Cozy Nestbox.

This has been our third attempt to trying to figure out ways to getting the palm nuts to travel well to Canada.

This time around, Kelly had vacuumed sealed the palm nuts to see if the process would help keep them fresher. And while some of the "bags" lost some of the seal and expanded a bit (something Kelly will be looking into fine tuning), the palm nuts arrived as nice as they ever did and I didn't throw out any of the shipment!

Kelly has also sent some fan palm nuts this time around and they've been quite the hit with Joey and Shade.


Queen palm nuts (orange) and Fan palm nuts (blue) - The Queen palm nuts had never looked so great arriving here before - leaving me very pleased as well as the birds. First time I received Fan palm nuts and they looked absolutely fantastic, despite being in the casing that had the most air when I opened the box.


Foxtail palm nuts (big reddish ones) and Christmas palm nuts (smaller reddish-green ones) - they were packaged together and obviously were the ones that suffered a bit more beating but were still perfectly fine to give the parrots.


Fan palm nuts on the stalk - so cool and I want to hang both stalks like that but not sure where to do so yet. Pandanus pods can be seen on the right.


To showcase the Pandanus pods - they have never traveled so well and I'm pleased with how good they look! Shade, Joey, Pixel and Zuri have been working on/off on a pod each in their cages.


Total order laid out to dry after having been washed in apple cider vinegar. Click on the picture for a slightly larger view

The shipment also included some Mahogany nuts, will post about them later on!

More Poinciana Seed Pod Enjoyment

Earlier this week I decided to thaw one of the precious few Poinciana seed pods I have left in the freezer.

I had thawed one once before and it had gone over well with the birds, as well as when I introduced them fresh when I first received them. While the pods browned up a bit after being thawed, they remained "tender" for the first few hours before drying up, just like they did when "fresh". The birds also seem to enjoy the dried up version - they chew on it and do bang it around to make some noise.

In any case, the pod sections I offered this week were as appreciated as before, although this time they got all the seeds before anything had a chance to dry up.

Some pictures of course, Zuri, Shade and Joey were particularly fond of the pods.

Enjoying the pod and looking Angelique at the same time...


Dgging in!


Still holding on..


Shade and her crazy obsessed eyes!


Manages to extract a seed!


Messy beak!


Shade is not the only one with crazy eyes - here is Joey's rendition!


More crazy-obsessed eyes!


Joey gives the pods two talons up!

Green or brown...

....these pods are made to be chewed!

Some pictures from tonight. Really show how into it Joey was...(which is pretty representative about how most of the Pois where busy tonight, Joey just happened to be standing right in front of me.)







Natural foraging opportunities are fantastic!

(I still have pictures from yesterday to look at...most likely will get to it tomorrow or during the week-end)

The Poinciana Seed Pods..

...are keeping Zuri so busy right now that he is staying out of trouble!

He's happily chewing away at his pod section, working hard to get the seed.
Much better past time than chasing the other birds ;)


The seed pods have really been an overwhelming success so far - I had put a piece in each of the cages and couldn't find Pixel's or Shade's, Zuri's piece was down to a tiny lump and Joey had profusely chewed his. Petey left his intact and Piper didn't get any since they are a bit too tough for him I think (he did get a Christmas palm nut which he has touched!).

The Cozy Nestbox

Today I received a test shipment of some goodies from the Cozy Nestbox.

It really stemmed from my desire to try the Poinciana seed pods after seeing many posts made about them on one of the bird forums I am on, by the owner of the Cozy Nestbox, Kelly. So Kelly offered to do a trial run and I got a few other items.

Some arrived here in great condition, some were not so great. Most of what was in my test package was ok for bird consumption though.

So far, the Poinciana seed pods (although they had started going brown (drying out) as we suspected they might) and the Christmas palm nuts are a big hit. I'll share a few pictures I have of the birds with the latter, I'll probably have the pictures with the Poinciana seed pods up tomorrow or sometime this week-end. Joey, Shade and Pixel were definitively the most enthusiastic about the products, Zuri chimed it when he saw Joey chewing on a seed pod and the prospect of stealing it away was too hard to resist ;) No luck so far with Piper or Petey.

Again, this was a test shipment to Canada. Kelly is still trying to figure out some things before making them widely available to Canadians.

So..here are some pictures :)

I started by giving them half a Christmas palm nut..













And then Joey decided he'd go towards the container I kept them in and stole a whole one and enjoyed on one of the stands..