COMBINING FOOD INGREDIENTS INTO HOMOGENEOUS PELLETS FOR THE SHAMA

Most commercial dry food will come in pellet form. Home made dry food will require some effort and time to make them into homogeneous pellets. This is how I would combine food ingredients into homogeneous pellets.

Ingredients:



combination of dry ingredients ground to a fine powder












low salt canned sardines rinsed and drained







minced raw lean beef after being wrapped in a towel to soak up excess moisture













raw egg yolks








The first three ingredients are thoroughly mixed together:















Next, the egg yolks are mixed in to form a dough:















This will then be put through a rotary grater, after which they will be cooked and dried at very low temperature in a turbo broiler for several hours.












The final result:



Several hours will be needed at very low temperature to sufficiently cook and dry them. When properly done, these can be kept for several months, just like commercial dry pellets.





It should be noted that the above is just an example of the process involved in making shama pellets at home. The ingredients above are just examples and may not necessary represent an ideal combination.There are reasons for my preference that home made dry food should be in homogeneous pellet form. Offering the birds a combination of various separate dried ingredients without making them into homogeneous pellets will result in the birds picking out only the preferred ingredients and leaving the rest behind. There will also be spillage all over the cage floor and the surrounding area caused by this or by grinding up the various ingredients into a powdery form. Powdery dry food may also cause irritations to the nostrils and eyes. Shamas when given the choice will mostly prefer a pellet form dry food over powdery ones.It is important to bear in mind that when introducing any new ingredients into the dry food, it has to be done gradually. The bird’s digestive system will need time to adjust in order to produce the required amount of the necessary enzymes to cater to the digestion of the new food. For the same reason, the proportion of the various ingredients used in making the dry food should always be consistent from batch to batch. The moisture content of the final product should also be as consistent as possible and inconsistencies should be minimised by using the same amount of cooking and drying time, at the same temperature setting, from batch to batch. It is always a good practice to keep some dry food from the previous batch to be mixed with some of those from a newly made batch when starting on a new batch of dry food. This will allow the birds to adjust more gradually to any slight inconsistency between them. It is not unusual that a change or any inconsistencies in the dry food will trigger a drop in the bird's form and in more severe cases, could even result in a stress molt. Often, they are due to eating insufficiently or the inability of the digestive system to adjust to an abrupt change. 

King Crimson - Cat Food