This morning, Mr. Ass-Bird is up to his same ole tricks again.
Yesterday, I make from-scratch cooked chocolate pudding. I have 4 egg whites left over after I used the yolks for the pudding.
Conrad's breakfast ALWAYS starts with scrambled eggs - every morning. I cook one egg for him every couple days, and keep it in the refrigerator, giving him a little each morning until it's gone. The rest of his daily diet is varied, but eggs has always been - and will always be - the center of his diet.
I absolutely hate waste - and most people who do it, so I cooked the egg whites in the microwave for Conrad's breakfasts for the next few days. Four egg whites should get him several meals.
The little shit tastes the egg whites, and he refuses to eat them. (After all, they are WHITE and not YELLOW, and he doesn't taste any yolk in the eggs. So, he's naturally going to refuse to eat the whites.)
This morning, without ceremony, I give him the egg whites in his bowl, and I walk away from his cage. His begging and pleading for breakfast continues. After tasting the egg whites, he not only can tell that they look different, but that they taste different, too. He refuses to eat the egg whites.
I know... I know... I can mix the cooked egg whites with Rudolph's (pug) food, and he would love it, and I could cook another whole egg for Conrad.
Oh, no, Hunties. I won't be taken down like that.
I calmly walk over to Conrad's cage, and I remove the offending food bowl from his cage. I search my pantry in vain for yellow food coloring.
African Greys can tell the difference between many shades of color. Birds have the best vision of any animal, including humans, on the planet. Luckily, contrary to popular belief, most birds have very poor senses of smell. They are very sight-based animals. (You never see a bird sniffing each other's butt, and again, contrary to popular belief, if you see a true, obviously undeveloped, unfledged baby bird that has been knocked out of his nest by a storm, you can pick him up and put him back in the nest. His parent(s) can't smell 'human' on him.
Anywho, I realized that, out of two boxed of food coloring, all my yellow is gone.
What to do?
Turmeric to the rescue!
I put some turmeric w/ water in a small bowl, and I take the offending egg whites out of Conrad's bowl, and I place them in the turmeric-infused water. I then let the eggs sit a few minutes to absorb the yellow color. After rinsing them off quickly in water, they have a definite yellow-orange hue to them, but they're not stark white.
(Greys also have a VERY discerning sense of taste. He can easily taste the difference between plain egg whites and a cooked whole egg - and he can even taste the slightly turmeric-flavored egg whites, but that, indeed, is something that he is just going to have to get over - something he's going to have to deal with, because I can't and won't change it.
I nonchalantly put the colored egg whites back in his food bowl, and the bowl back in his cage. RELUCTANTLY AS HELL, he is actually eating the whites. He's not at all thrilled with the situation, and I'm still hearing lots of begging coming from that room, but hey - he's eating his breakfast!
- Michael
