I bought a cactus pad from the farmer's market few days ago. I haven't tried giving it to my Russian yet though.
Is there a certain to cut it? Do I need to take the prickles off?
Just take a filet knife and slice the prickles off and dice it up. There beaks are sharper than you think they can tear off bites pretty easily. This also helps with the beak somewhat being kept filed down.
Just give it a good rinse with water, you can chop it up and feed!
I take out all the big visible easy thorns and leave the small ones, some leave all the thorns, some taken them out!
Just preference