Are these good for budgies?

[Britnicorn]

I was thinking of adding jalapeno peppers to my budgie's chop, is it okay for them to eat? What about the seeds?
Is there a difference between the different colored bell peppers? Which one is the best to give? I've just been giving yellow bell peppers mostly since they like that one the best
Is it better to boil mustard greens, turnip greens, and collard greens or feed them raw? I was unsure about the oxalic acid content so I boiled them for the last chop but now I want to see if I can give it raw this time

Thanks!

 

[Shezbug]

The chilli is fine no matter which type.
@Mizzely should be able to help you with the other stuff because I have no idea what they actually are- if they’re available here then they’re called something different.

 

[Mizzely]

All peppers including seeds are fine. There is no best really.

You CAN give dark leafy greens raw. But they are much more nutritious when at least lightly steamed.

 

[javi]

All peppers are safe. Well it is questionable about the habanero and hotter ones tho. It is not that they burn taste buds, it is more of what the extra heat does to digestive tract. My birds have all had habanero on occasion with no issues, other than burning my lips when they kiss on me. The jury is still out about really hot peppers.

 

[Lady Jane]

A birds taste buds are in the roof of their mouth. They have about 300 of them compared to 10,000 in a human mouth. Because of their relatively poor sense of taste, parrots eat primarily by sight as well as texture. In addition, parrots lack nerve receptors in their mouth. So they can eat foods that are hot and spicy that a human would have issues with.

 

[Mizzely]

Birds evolved to eat peppers and disperse their seeds. The "heat" from peppers is something that mammals experience, due to receptors in their mouth that they react to. Birds do not have these.

Molecular basis for species-specific sensitivity to "hot" chili peppers - PubMed

Chili peppers produce the pungent vanilloid compound capsaicin, which offers protection from predatory mammals. Birds are indifferent to the pain-producing effects of capsaicin and therefore serve as vectors for seed dispersal. Here, we determine the molecular basis for this species-specific...

pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov

 

[GreenThing]

Like Mizzely said, I steam dark greens and try to steam them for myself, too, not because it's bad to eat raw, but because it is such a simple way to improve the availability of nutrition from the plant. They are still getting calcium from supplements! I just think of it as getting the best bang for my buck.

I wonder about bell pepper colors, too, though! ... OKAY I just googled this and it blows my mind that they are the same pepper harvested at different times and that I didn't know this. SPIRALLING INTO EXISTENTIAL CRISIS. We are too distant from the land, how could I not know this about a vegetable I enjoy so much.

You can find charts showing the different nutritional content of different peppers, but I will have to read more about budgie biology to know what they benefit from the most. I think the darker the color the higher the sugar content, though-- like most things, they get sweeter as they ripen.