GREAT TIPS!!
Tuesday
1. Jay Bunker of Canada sent in this fantastic YOU Tube for us bird lovers! How about that bird music? Check it out
2. Rich May of Ohio has a tip on the easiest sprouter. Thanks Rich, I can't wait to try one!!
Monday
1. Do not miss this posting from Shawn of South Africa. He shares tips on using fresh seeds and sprouting seed in STOCKINGS!! Shawn says "The ideas these birds get out of me, shocks even me sometimes!" LOL
Questions:
Monday
1. What kinds of canaries do you raise?
10 comments:
Hi Linda and the bloggers:
Have you ever harvested your own rape seed? As part of my birds greenfood diet (chickweed, chicory shepherds purse, dandelion and russian comfrey) I also like to feed them rape leaves. This means that I need to sow some seeds in the garden a few weeks before and keep it up until the moult is done with. Within days, you will see the seeds start germinating and growing into lush bushes. Once they reach a certain age they make yellow flowers which is soon followed by pods containing rape seeds! I use all of it! I feed the leaves while they are young and tender to the hens (when they have the little green insects underneath they are at their best) with chicks and then later (once the leaves are gone) I pull the whole plant and give the stems aswell just cut into the stalk. I carefully remove the pods, and place them on a tray and leave them in the sun for a little while till they dry. Once dried, I simply chuck the lot into a jiffy bag and crush the pods with my hands until all the seeds are expelled - then sift with a collander to separate the pod remnants from the seeds. The fresh seed is fed to the birds year round and they love it. I especially like giving it in the moult because I believe it improves colour!
While my birds are in flights (all year except breeding time), I like to sprout the rape seeds in stockings, the leg part. Simply dump the seeds in the foot part and make a knot. Keep watered and soon it will start growing. When it does, I hang the stocking from the roof of the flight and watch them swing and eat!
The ideas these birds get out of me, shocks even me sometimes lol...
Shawn
HI BIG BIRD, how many birds and kinds you you how or keep.
My aviary has too many birds, too numerous to count! I would guess it is around 200 or 250! I raise German Rollers, Borders, Staffords, and some colorbred.
Thanks so much Shawn for the tip!! I assume by stockings you mean nylon hose?
It is amazing the ideas the birds give us!!
Great tip! If we ever get rid of this snow, I'll plant some of the seeds. Thanks, Janie (in Montana with a foot of snow in my yard!)
Last night Margaret Fletcher shared with me that just this week she had purchased a special sprouting bag from the health food store to sprout some seeds for herself to eat. Now she is going to go back an buy a second one for the birds!
Since the subject of sprouts has come up I will share with you one of the easiest best sprouters I have used. It is called the Easy Sprout Sprouter and is available from www.sproutpeople.com . It truely is easy and reliable. I use it to sprout rape seed for my birds, and they love them. I soak a cup and a half of rape seed in the container for about 12 hours, then simply rinse it uder the faucet a couple of times a day. In two days you have a quart of sprouts. I have four of these sprouters and so I do two containers at a time yielding a half gallon of sprouts that last my birds a week. The birds take to the sprouts the minute they are fed and it is a great conditioning food. The nice thing is being able to throw the sprouter in the dishwasher and it is ready to go again. Rich
Soaking seed in "stockings" or ladies "tights" is a very old method frequently mentioned in old issues of Cage and Aviary Birds.
Good quality Rape seed is so cheap, it's hardly wothwhile sowing.
Howzit Janie, Linda and all of the bloggers.
Snow - wow! Sure would love to see that in SA! I think the last time it snowed here was in 1980 (I was 5) and even that was a sad taste of it, it barely even covered the ground! The worst we get in Winter time is frost! Poor garden... I am envious! It would be nice to make a snowman! I am glad the tip helps you guys. And yip Linda I think you call it hose, ladies wear it here as an under garment. Oops almost too much info! Let me go to bed before I get into trouble lol...
Chat soon,
Shawn
I like the nylon stocking idea.
We make sprout containers from large mouth canning jars and insert circles of plastic cross stitch "canvas cut to the size of the lid. We may have several jars going at once and this way may also do particular seeds for particular birds. The plastic canvas comes in different sizes so you can do some mighty small seeds.
Pix
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