Sweet potatoes

[Pinkbirdy]

I need to get sweet potatoes into my birds diet . Do you guys use this ?How often ? I have tried doing it in mash [and they look at me like I have 3 heads  ]. So im going to do "Sweet potatoes day" . Im going to slice and bake . No skins right ?

[Sondra]

Prick them well with a fork and nuke them, leave the skins on. When you go to serve them remove the skin (do that while still warm, it's easiest) either slice or mash and press or roll in seeds. Pretty soon you won't need to use the seeds at all. You can roll in seeds with any new veggie or fruit you offer as they will get a bit of whatever is underneath the seeds when they take the seeds. Don't forget seeds are an important part of a birds diet.   

[Nakia]

I cut fresh sweet potato for mine and they do eat it. I also cook it in the microwave and then add it to the batter when I make birdie bread for them. Sometimes I use a can of pumpkin instead of sweet potato.

My flock will eat anything I add to their birdie bread. They are gluttons for anything they think is bread. That is where you can get pellets & other foods your birds may not want to touch down them.

That is as long as you don't have obstinate parrots like a certain green Zon I know ~~{Codie  } 

[Pinkbirdy]

That sounds easy 

[Sapphire]

That is as long as you don't have obstinate parrots like a certain green Zon I know ~~{Codie  devilwink }  laugh

  I went to so much trouble one particular day to make birdie bread for Codie! It took me hours  I cut it all up nicely for him, excitedly put it in his bowl thinking to myself "he is going to love this"  Well, to my utter amazement, he picked it up, had a little nibble, looked at me, then threw it across the room  He is very particular with his food and he knows what he likes 

As for sweet potato, yes he likes this! I normally, cook it, mash it and mix it in with his veg and he loves it 

[Sondra]

PLEASE do NOT feed raw sweet potato, or white potato to your birds.

Sweet Potato

Sweet potato shows trypsin inhibitor activity. That means it contains an enzyme inhibitor that blocks the action of trypsin, an enzyme that digests proteins. The trypsin inhibitor prevents the digestion of protein. Sweet potatoes with higher protein levels have more of the trypsin inhibitor. This makes raw sweet potato difficult to digest. The trypsin inhibitor is deactivated by cooking.

One way the raw food diet helps people is by supplying food enzymes. Food enzymes do part of the work of digesting the raw food. Enzyme inhibitors increase the amount of work that your body needs to do to digest foods. Enzyme inhibitors force your body to produce more digestive enzymes. This uses up resources that could be used to produce detoxifying enzymes. When animals are regularly fed enzyme inhibitors in research, they become sick. Sweet potato should not be eaten raw.

Potato

Potato contains the glycoalkaloids alpha-solanine and alpha-chaconine (Maya, 1980), concentrated mainly in the flowers and sprouts (200 to 500 mg/100 g). In healthy potato tubers the concentration of the glycoalkaloids is usually less than 10 mg/100 g and this can normally be reduced by peeling (Wood and Young, 1974; Bushway et al., 1983). In bitter varieties the alkaloid concentration can go up to 80 mg/100 g in the tuber as a whole and up to 150220 mg/100 g in the peel. The presence of these glycoalkaloids is not perceptible to the taste buds until they reach a concentration of 20 ma/100 g when they taste bitter. At higher concentrations they cause a burning and persistent irritation similar to hot pepper. At these concentrations solanine and other potato glycoalkaloids are toxic. They are not destroyed during normal cooking because the decomposition temperature of solanine is about 243 C.

Levels of glycoalkaloids may build up in potatoes which are exposed to bright light for long periods. They may also result from wounding during harvest or during post-harvest handling and storage, especially at temperatures below 10°C (Jadhav and Salunkhe, 1975). Glycoalkaloids are inhibitors of choline esterase and cause haemorrhagic damage to the gastrointestinal tract as well as to the retina (Ahmed, 1982). Solanine poisoning has been known to cause severe illness but it is rarely fatal (Jadhav and Salunkhe, 1975).

Potato also contains proteinase inhibitors which act as an effective defense against insects and micro-organisms but are no problem to humans because they are destroyed by heat. Lectins or haemogglutenins are also present in potato. These toxins are capable of agglutinating the erythocytes of several mammalian species including humans (Goldstein and Hayes, 1978), but this is of minimal nutritional significance as haemogglutenins are also destroyed by heat, and potatoes are normally cooked before they are eaten.

[Pinkbirdy]

WOW , good info [thought id heard something about them].