So yet again, the birds have run out of mash, and I decided to try out some new ingredients this time. The amount of mash I made was crazy, so here’s the recipe, with all the amounts reduced in half, lol.

100g Split Green Lentils
100g Mung Beans
100g Chickpeas
80g Buckwheat
75g Bulgar Wheat
50ml Quinoa
100g Barley
100g Sweetcorn
A selection of dried herbs and spices – I used what I had in the cupboard, which was crushed chillis, cinnamon, mixed herbs, basil, thyme and dill.

Firstly, the chickpeas and mung beans need to be soaked overnight, and soaking the lentils will reduce their cooking time too, so I soaked mine at the same time. As I can quite work out how to cook all the ingredients together, what with the differences in cooking time, I cooked mine separately, using three pans, then mixed it all together in a bowl. Check the back of the packets for cooking time, but everything is really just cooking until it’s soft, so the time isn’t too important. I started by cooking the chickpeas (these took an hour and a half, so they were the first to start and the last to finish), the lentils, and the mung beans. The lentils were the first to finish, so I drained them, rinsed them in cold water, and used the pan again to cook the quinoa. Put the quinoa in with 100ml of water, boil for ten minutes and simmer for fifteen minutes. The bulgar wheat just needs to sit in a bowl of water until tender – about 3/4 of a pint for 75g. Once the mung beans were done, I drained and rinsed them then added them to my bowl, and used the pan for the buckwheat – like the quinoa, rinse and put into 80ml of water, boil for ten minutes, then simmer until the water is mostly absorbed. The barley (I used pearl barley) again needs to go into cold water, boil for ten minutes, then simmer until soft. The sweetcorn, I used frozen and cooked in the microwave. As everything finishes cooking, drain, rinse and add to the mixing bowl. Mix everything up together, cover and put in the fridge overnight. I find leaving it in the fridge overnight allows it to soak up any water and become less mushy and our birds  definitely prefered it more that way, than they did when I offered them some before putting it in the fridge. Now add in the herbs and spices.

One bowl like this (I made two bowls worth) fills four ice cube trays, which will last about a month for our six. You can always add more veg to the mix too. I just used what I happened to have on hand at the time. And you can mix up the mash with seed or pellets for reluctant birds.

Firstly, apologies to everyone for the lack of new posts in the last month. It’s been the combination of a temporary move to a different project at work (where I normally write my posts), a complete lack of imagination on my part, and a weeks holiday. However, we’re back on track now with a new foraging toy now, and another idea or two bubbling away at the back of my mind, and since we’ve practically run out of birdie mash, I’ll be making up a new recipe for that at the weekend.

If you missed the last post, Feathers and Forage is now a year old! Last month was a record breaking month for us with the most traffic to the site so far. We had a total of 633 unique visitors with 150 of you returning at least once, and 2,143 pageloads altogether. As I’ve seen a few of you coming here from Facebook, I’ve set up a Feathers and Forage FB group. Please feel free to join, discuss foraging, toys and recipes, make suggestions to me, and post photos and videos of your own birds foraging.

And now for the main feature – Foraging Toy No. 49. I used a skewer as the basis for this toy, mainly for convenience, since they’re so easy to use, but you can also use leather or wire. I cut up one of our dried corn cobs into about inch thick chunks. Our two absolutely love pulling the corn from the cobs, so I thought they’d love them as part of a toy. They are pretty tough to cut through, but I managed ok with my little hacksaw, or you could try using a breadknife. It’s very easy to make holes through the soft core once you’ve got it chopped. To add a little more challenge, I wrapped the corn cob in newspaper, then threaded it onto the skewer.

Next is a cat ball, with the bottom removed, as described in previous posts. This I threaded on with the large hole at the bottom, and makes filling the ball much easier. Above this, I finished it off with another corn cob wrapped in newspaper, a block with three muffin cups upside down over it, and four long pieces of shredders. The last step was to fill the cat ball. The little cage is great for holding all sorts of things, like pieces of millet, pumpkin seeds and dried fruit. In this case, I used small peices of nutriberries.

Yep, Feathers and Forage is now a year old! Thanks to everyone who’s been visiting the site. We’ve had almost four thousand different vistors to the site and as of today, 11,814 page loads. Thank you all! There are currently a total of 48 different foraging ideas on the site (no. 49 will be up later, I have the photos ready ), nine recipes made specifically for the blog, and 38 different homemade toys! We also now have a Feathers and Forage Facebook Group, so if you’re on FB feel free to join up.