Feeding refrigerated foods

[bleeding green]

When you feed food that has been stored in the fridge, do you let it warm up to room temperature first? I'm not talking about frozen seeds but fruits and vegies.
If they are not brought to room temps first what harm will they cause the birds or young?

[Fincho162]

My vegetable mix is kept in the fridge as are my maggot "collection" and are basically fed direct from the fridge. Guess as a rule of thumb "if you wouldn't eat it yerself don't feed it to yer birds" should apply!!!

Also keep a container of milk thistle heads in there as well - again fed direct.

If you're worried about chicks then it has to enter the adult first which should warm it up considerably.

Have mates that feed softfood type stuff direct from the freezer.....with no obvious problems with either chicks or adults...............apart from them needing to adopt a jack-hammer approach to actually getting to it when first fed!!

[natamambo]

My vegetable mix is kept in the fridge as are my maggot "collection" and are basically fed direct from the fridge. Guess as a rule of thumb "if you wouldn't eat it yerself don't feed it to yer birds" should apply!!!

Glad you're not my mum/dad . Happy for my birds to eat the maggots and mealies and woodies cold, not sure I'm too keen to be in there with them having a go though .

To the OP, with much of the live food cold is the only way to stop it escaping before the birds get to it.

[bleeding green]

I'm referring to fruit and vegies. I let my frozen vegies thaw in the fridge for 24 hours then feed direct from fridge. I store my greens (when they are bought) straight from the fridge. Same for corn cobs, cucumber, brochilli, and fruit when the fruit bowl is empty.
I do this for practicality, as I don't have the time in the mornings to let the food warm up first before I feed it out.

Is this doing harm to my birds?

[Fincho162]

Personally I don't allow frozen stuff to thaw naturally...............i zap it in the microwave and then mix it with the veggie mix.........."power thaw"!!

Again I say a personal thing...........and not qualified to say whether you're doing harm but just don't "feel" that natural thaw of frozen good is that flash when mixed with other materials which are then stored back in the fridge.......hope that makes some convoluted sense!!!!!!!!!!

[jusdeb]

The only birds to get pre warmed food are the babies all else get food from the fridge and it bothers them not one bit .
I dont see mother nature warming up food in the wild on cold wintery mornings .

[Fincho162]

Beautifully put Jusdeb - u make my point for me!!!!

And we tend to have colder mornings than most down here in winter!!!!!!!!!!!!

[bleeding green]

I have been doing the same for a while too deb and I haven't noticed any problems. It's only that I picked up another book to read and it said to let the food warm to room temp, then rince in luke warm water before feeding out. It said to never feed cold food, but didn't state why.

Just wondering what the consequence of doing so may be? Maybe our resident vet can answer

[jusdeb]

Im curious myself as Ive even been guilty of feeding frozen madiera cake to the birds ...it does thaw it in a matter of minutes so if I forget to pull it out early they get it frozen and still eat it .

[spanna]

I'm no vet, but from a biological background I would say the author would be considering that cold foods may cause a slow down in the crop of young birds. I have never had such problems though, and I feed frozen green seeds and sprouted seeds daily, as well as cucumber and maggots from the fridge, all of which are consumed as I walk out the door and fed to young no more than 5 minutes later (I can always here baby diamonds begging as I reach the next aviary!!).

As has been said, the parents probably warm the food to a reasonable temperature anyway, so I wouldn't worry about it in the slightest, it may just have been the author covering his own rear end!