There is nothing more satisfying than eating a big bowl of jello with all different flavors.
Imagine you’re just finishing off your food and finish with a big bowl of jello.
Next thing you know you have your parrot on your shoulder begging for you to give them some.
So, the question is can parrots eat Jello? The answer is……… YES! As long as you are careful with the ingredients that are in the jello, your parrot should be absolutely fine to eat them.
In this article we will be looking at the benefits of giving Jello to your parrot, the disadvantages of giving Jello to your parrot, how to prepare jello to give to your parrot.
We’ve even included a parrot-friendly recipe for you to try for your parrot.
If there is one thing you must remember it is that you know your parrots.
If you want to try new foods with them then amazing, but don’t get carried away with things you know they won’t want to try.
Benefits of giving Jello to your parrot
There are many benefits of giving your parrot jello to eat.
As you can make jello yourself, there is usually no risk for feeding it to your feathered friends.
This is as long as you use low sugar jello or unsweetened, natural gelatin mix.
As you may have seen in many of our articles before, too much sugar in your parrots’ diet can result in being fatal for your parrot.
The benefits of giving jello to your parrots are being able to give them a little treat of their own.
A little tub of jello no more than twice a week will give your parrot a lovely, treat for them to have.
This will also give them some sensory experiences when you give them the jello.
Yes, it’s definitely going to be messy but if you out some nuts into your jello mix, there is nothing better than being able to watch your parrot play with the jello and then have 2 delicious treats at the end of it.
If you mix your gelatin mix with fruit juices, then this will also give your parrot something new and exciting to look forward to.
As we said earlier, just make sure that your parrot is comfortable trying new foods as they might find it a bit too much having lots of different things to try.
Introduce Jello slowly and then maybe try mixing it up by adding seeds or nuts, but only if your parrot is comfortable with the jello!
Just remember to be positive with this new interaction and hopefully that will carry through to your parrot.
Who knows, they could want to have it all day long once they’ve tried it!
Related – Can Parrots Eat Ice Cream?
Disadvantages of giving Jello to your parrot.
When giving your parrot jello, you will need to be aware of the disadvantages it comes with.
First things first, if you decide to give your parrot jello, it is guaranteed to be messy.
There is no escaping it I’m afraid!
It’s going to be really messy so you’re going to have to accept this and brace yourself if you’re anything like me and HATE mess….. and, brace yourself for the clean-up afterwards!
Another disadvantage to giving jello to your parrots is that premix and ready-made jello’s intended for humans have high sugar content.
Even the low sugar ones or no sugar jello mixes have sugar substitutes which are very dangerous for your parrot to consume.
Having too much sugar in your parrot’s diet can lead to the following health problems:
Weakening the immune system
Weakening the digestive system
Heighten infections
Diabetes
High cholesterol etc.
These are just some of the health problems that parrots can experience if they consume too much sugar.
There are a lot more health problems which can arise if your beautiful birds eat too much sugar so just be mindful of this when you are feeding them their little treat.
Please do not think that by giving your parrot natural sugars they will result in the health problems above; this is only valid for refined sugars that you may find in premix jello’s.
You should also watch out for sugar substitutes because these can equally cause health problems and even fatalities with your parrot friends.
Artificial sweeteners can be fatal for your parrot.
There has been a study to show that certain artificial sweeteners can even cause cancer in birds and can have several other reactions to it as well.
So better to be safe than sorry!
How to prepare Jello for your parrot
You may think that this is a simple enough task to do but sometimes you can get a bit clever with your jello when feeding it to your parrots.
By putting the jello in different containers and food holders, it adds a little bit of excitement to feeding jello to your parrot.
We do not recommend that you start hiding jello all over your birdies cage through!
When you are first introducing jello to your parrot you want to make sure the jello is the right size and on its own.
We recommend that the jello portion is small but not too small as your parrot with either nibble at it or they will try and pick it up with their feet.
Depending on what your parrot prefers, you can serve your jello straight from the refrigerator or take it out 5 or so minutes before you serve it to them for it to be a warmer temperature.
If you have given your parrot jello a few times on its own, we would then recommend that you start adding seeds or nuts to it to give it some extra excitement.
Please remember to only do this if your parrot is interested in the jello in the first place, if they are not interested, we recommend that you do not try this over and over again.
Once your parrot has jello introduced with seeds and nuts to it, you can then find some wooden ornaments with some small holes in it to place the jello into.
This will encourage your parrot to find the jello and engage play with it, adding a bit of fun to treat time.
Parrot friendly Jello recipe
If you’ve been reading this article and you think that giving your parrot is the way forward, then we have the perfect recipe for you to try!
Below is a bird-friendly jello recipe that you can make at home.
This is just a simple recipe that you can add any ingredients to, to make it unique to your bird’s favorite flavors.
You will need:
1 packet of organic, plain gelatin
Fruit juice to mix.
Step 1
Firstly, take your organic, plain gelatin and mix as directed on the packet. We recommend that you mix the gelatin with fruit juice instead of water to give the gelatin some extra taste to it.
Step 2
Pour the mixture into some molds that are size appropriate for your parrot. Small chunks are a good size for all size birds.
Step 3
Set for the appropriate time in the fridge and the serve!
If you want to add some of your parrot’s favorite seeds or nuts, then feel free to do this also.
Alternatively, you can make the gelatin mix with the water and then mash in some of your parrot’s favorite fruits to give it another little twist.
If you’re not sure about using juices to mix in with your gelatin, you can also use unsweetened baby food fruit purees to give your jello some extra taste and then you can use natural fruits as well.
Just bear in mind the sugar content you are putting in.
Why not try savory jello?
Mix in some vegetables or vegetable purees with your gelatin and see the results of this!
There are so many options available for your to make jello for your parrot.
Whatever you decide to do, we’re sure your parrot will love this healthy, bird-friendly jello recipe.
So there we have it, many different views on giving your parrots jello but overall, we believe that if you are sensible with your options of jello then your parrot can enjoy this little treat, and it will be reasonably healthy for them.
As we have said, please remember that you know what is best for your parrot and if you can tell that they do not like what they are being fed, then do not try and give them different varieties of jello.
We really hope that you’ve enjoyed reading through the information on this article and that it has answered all your questions on whether parrots can eat jello or not.
We also have a wide variety of articles for juices that parrots can drink as well which may help you when making your own jello, as well as fruits that parrots are able to eat.
Thanks for reading!