Skip to content

Homemade Seed Sticks for Parrots

Author: Birds of a feather Q&A

If there’s one food out there that’s like parrot crack, it’s probably seed sticks. I don’t know about you guys’ birds, but mine go out of their mind when I hang one in their cage. The downside is that these are not exactly the healthiest treats.
You can actually make seed sticks yourself pretty easily. That way you know exactly what’s in there and can customize them to your bird’s preferences! The ones this recipe makes turn out quite hard, so they’ll keep smaller birds like budgies busy for a good while.

 

Ingredients

  • 2 tsp (about 15 grams) honey
  • 2 egg whites
  • ½ cup (about 100 grams) parrot seed mix
  • ½ cup (about 100 grams) grams ground/crushed pellets*
  • ½ cup (about 85 grams) grams whole parrot pellets
Optional: shredded coconut, chopped dried fruit bits
Craft sticks (not dyed)
*You can pour them into a ziploc baggie, close it up and go to town with a rolling pin to end up with a semi-powdery texture.

Method

Step 1: Preheat the oven to 325 °F (160 °C)
Optional: drill holes into your craft sticks so you can loop wire through them later. This way, you can hang them in your bird’s cage.
Step 2: Pour the seed mix, pellets and pellet powder into a bowl. Toss in a sprinkle of any desired additional ingredients.
Step 3: Add honey and egg whites. Mix everything up until all seed is coated, forming a sort of paste.
Step 4: This is the messy bit. Take the craft sticks and use your hands to cover them and form the seed sticks. They’ll be a bit crumbly and unstable at this point, so be careful.
Step 5: Carefully place your seed sticks on some parchment paper and pop them into the oven.
Step 6: Bake the sticks until they’re just lightly golden. The exact time depends on the size, but they really don’t need that long, so keep an eye on them.
Step 7: Let the seed sticks cool and offer one to the testing panel.

Back to blog