Thursday, September 4, 2014

Too Much Of A Good Thing - Portion Control

 Today as I was looking over my birds, I noticed this Border with a dropping clinging to its feathers. There are five borders in this cage and three had at least a hint of droppings clinging to the feathers.

Are they suddenly ill or what could be the problem? They look very healthy yesterday and even today with the loose dropping. Then I remember that yesterday I gave them a new dish which I generously filled with Blattner's seeds. The birds love it and immediately started eating their fill.  Oops, it was way too generous! Portion Control needed here!

So they pigged out on their favorites, likely the flax (linseed) and now I need to reverse it a bit with extra greens and carbs but lower fat such as dry nestling food, plain canary seed, and millet sprays.

It is important to catch the problem early as if it continues and vent gets plugged with droppings the bird will die..

Invariably the Border with the dropping clinging to its feathers is one that is too thin or bordering on too thin.

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