Monday, May 20, 2013

Leaving the Nest





In addition to nestling foods, I like to offer a quarter of hard boiled egg as soon as the first chick leaves the nest. They will nibble on the yolk edge before eating any other food.  Once weaned, I discontinue pure hard boiled egg as I want them to fatten up a bit.

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

Hi Linda,
I have a question about the wheat germ coated seed you are using.
Are you not afraid when mixing it up in a larg batch the oils go rancid?
Another question, I know not for now, is some fanciers mixing their regular canary mix 50/50 with budgie mix in the REST period (winter). What do you think about this in order not fattening up birds like Borders?
Thanks and well done again this year!
Christel

Linda Hogan said...

Have never had a problem with the wheat germ coated seeds getting rancid. Probably the 50 lb batch last me about two weeks but other times of the year, I have used it for a month. My aviary does get warm in the 90's F during the summer.

Not too sure about budgie mix I think it is a lot of millet. How high a carb you need depends on the temperature of the aviary and how easy or hard it is to fatten them. My borders with a couple of exceptions are hard to fatten and also lose weight rapidly at the show so I do feed stray millet during the off season as well as soft bread, and sunflower pieces. I have not found the millet fattening but rather they love to play with the sprays and pick at them.

Anonymous said...

Hi Linda,
Thanks for the answer!
Please take a look at the www of the Comed company, Belgium.
The principal idea is coating the seeds, different season, different mixes, vitamins, minerals, etheric oils,... Lots of Belgian fanciers having good success with this brand. I have checked it out this made me think. If one follows their advice the birds get all the vitamins they need in their total feed regime. In contrast with this, most of us give a perfect softfood in vitamins and minerals, but this makes up only a fraction of their total diet.
Please check this out:
http://www.comed.be/index.php?page=verzorgingvogels&cat=3
Thanks,
christel