Every bird love Pomegranate!!!
Pomegranates!! Oh, the joy of
feeding them to our birds! I love watching them dig in, but hate the
red juice on my walls. This is when having plexiglass clamped onto
the cage, on the back side, saves your paint! Another idea is to
spread an old sheet on the floor around the cage and wash when done.
I feed mine to our fids in outside cages, so there is no mess in the
house.
These are a great fruit for birds and
very healthy. They are considered to be anti-viral!
Some times of the year they are hard
to find, but they do keep in the fridge and they freeze nicely. Here
in AZ, they grow and are a great tree to plant for those of us who
have fids. Last year, I noticed a yard with tons of them going to
waste, so I knocked and asked them if we could pick. It was a "yes!"
Now, we cruise our neighborhood asking for Pomegranates when we see
a tree in a yard. We also have a tree growing up in our yard for the
future. Many birds that are finicky will still go for the Pomegranate, but
if your bird is scared of new things in its cage, then serve it in
small pieces.
When we first started cutting up
Pomegranates, we would slice through the middle and chunk it up.
Messy!! By this method, we smushed a bunch of the seeds within,
squirted red juice on counters and clothes and lost a lot of the
fruit.
There are better methods. One is to make a cut just through the skin up near the top (at the crown) and then pull apart the pomegranate into big chunks. Then submerge those chunks under water, breaking apart sections. I feed the sections of pomegranate to the bigger birds and save the kernels of fruit that fall out for the smaller birds. The bigger birds love finding their own kernels amidst the membranes and peel. Here's an added bonus: the membranes and rind float and the seeds sink. This method of getting to the seeds is illustrated at this link http://www.pomegranates.org/nomess.html Remember though that the bigger parrots will like fishing through the membranes and removing the seeds themselves.
Another nice thing to know about Pomegranates is that they freeze very nicely. There are 2 ways to freeze Pomegranates. The "Pom" people recommend allowing the arils (individual pom seeds) in single layers on paper towels. Then, freezing them on waxed paper to later bag them up and freeze them. In my big hurry, I just pack whole fruit in a heavy, zip-style plastic bag and store in the freezer. They will keep for a good, long time. Defrost before cutting open and juicing or extracting the seeds. Buy and freeze pomegranates during their very short season (late fall to early winter), and you can enjoy them anytime.
Kelly, the mom of Ulrich, dries her Pom arils. Ulrich loves them dried. Use either a food dehydrator or the oven on low setting. Here is a picture of what they look like dried out: http://www.flickr.com/photos/ulricheclectus/2038797605/ Click here to learn more about the Green Flash, aka Ulrich.
Here are the nutrients found within a medium one:
5 mg. calcium
12 mg. phosphorus
.5 mg. iron
5 mg. sodium
399 mg. potassium
2 mg. magnesium
6 mg. vitamin C
Trace of vitamin A
Here is a fun Pomegranate Whole Wheat Muffin Recipie!
2 cups whole wheat flour
1 cup all purpose flour
3/4 cup golden brown sugar, packed
2 TBSP baking powder
1/2 tsp salt
1 tsp ground cinnamon
1 1/2 cups fresh pomegranate seeds (approx 1 large
pom)
3 eggs, beaten
1 1/2 cups 2% milk
1/2 cup unsweetened apple sauce
1/2 tsp vanilla
Preheat oven to 375 F. Spray muffin pan with cooking
spray. Place the 1st 6 ingredients in a large bowl and
combine. Stir in pomegranate seeds. In another bowl
combine eggs, milk, applesauce and vanilla. Add wet
ingredients to the dry and mix until just combined.
Fill muffin tins to the top and bake for 20-22min
(mine took less time).
Makes 12 muffins. I actually had batter left over and
made a tiny loaf too.
Hope your fids enjoy as much as mine did!
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