Questions on new water / food dispensers

[Willow]

Hi,

I'm looking for food/water dispenser suggestions. I would preferable purchase from amazon.

My cage stays inside, has 1/2" spacing and lots of little doors with food cups. Iv been using 4 of them plus I have a few of these little fruit shaped food cups inside. I would like to get rid of all the door cups if possible because my zebra finches will not stop trying to nest in them and even just sleeping in them at night. Water gets super gross quickly, I change it multiple times a day but it looks awful when I get home from work. Food is getting ruined before eaten and I dont want to encourage more breeding.

They have plenty of branches (dowel & natural) and some fake greenery. They normally try to sleep in then at night only or when trying to build a nest (they try yanking the plants over to cover them.

I'm weary of things that hang outside the cage only because I have cats and don't want to chance them wanting to jump on something.

Is there anything better? What do you all use?

[Sally]

Willow

For seed, I love the vacation seed hoppers like this. It can hang on the inside with the hooks on the back, or it can hang in a sliding feed door opening. I hang mine on the outside of some cages, but then I use a mini bungee cord to secure it in place.

https://ladygouldian.com/Vacation-Seed-Feeder

For water, I use these tubes. I will still occasonally find one poop or a bit of seed hull in these, but for the most part, they stay really clean. This 7oz size is good for a few birds. For bigger cages, I either use 2 of them or I use the 14oz size.

https://www.birdsupplynh.com/catalog/pr ... 5ed5b06eaa

[Barbara]

I had the same problem with my society,waxbills,gouldians I use this hanging feeder (it really hangs down sorry all my pictures turn)it is a perfect size I found on king cage site it is like a chicken feeder with separate holes so no one can throw seed out.It has saved me so much $$ buying seed and I know they always have fesh clean seed ,also have to keep all other feed and water dishes as low as I can if not they always try to lay eggs in them.I have never used seed hoppers but I do use water tubes that fit on my F030 cage that has 3/8 bar spacing.don't our little bird friends keep us busy.

[Barbara]

Here is the water tube I use,I also keep a bowl of water for them to bathe/drink,hey this time it went the right way hopefully I can remember how I did that

[debbyloo]

I solved the problem of keeping food and water clean and in good supply by running a narrow shelf (covered with newspaper folded to size and clipped on with the black plastic and metal office binder clips) along the entire front of my flight cage (abutting the sides) at a height to allow me to put a plastic "chicken" waterer from the feed store and a number of nice large ceramic shallow "crock" type containers (from Petsmart, probably for hamsters or such) for various seed mixes. The containers are covered by the overhanging shelf, so less apt to be pooped in. Yet the shelf is high enough that the birds don't feel "trapped" under there when feeding. In addition, I use the shelf surface to clip cucumber halves to (just wedge them under the metal bracket clip already in use), and line up a number of smaller "treat" crock cups for other goodies. My finches hang out more toward the back of the cage anyway (nearer the window), so these get soiled less frequently. Main thing is the water and large seed crocks stays much cleaner, and this really helps keep disease down too. The chicken waterer (mine is opaque plastic with a red round saucer part) also allows them to bathe in the water, or drink and holds probably a couple cups of water. My shelf is made of wood, but it could be made from any material you chose. I suspended mine with tiny eyehooks at each end and small lengths of wire to tie the ends to the side of the cage where they abut. Hope this is helpful. I don't know what size cage you have. If it is large enough, this worked for me.

[wilkifam]

https://www.petsolutions.com/C/Bird-Wat ... DQodkqoHwA

and

https://ladygouldian.com/Vacation-Seed-Feeder

[lem2bert]

Willow,

Here are a couple items from Amazon that may be helpful to you. I have the seed coral and have not had a problem with my canaries using it. You can hang it on the inside of the cage.

Seed coral $11.65
Patgoal 4Pc Plastic bird drinkers. medium. 4.25

[Willow]

Thanks for all the replies. My local pet stores are usually lacking in the bird department but when I was out shopping I found a couple to try - they were cheapy though. The only one they are using is the yellow one that says for med-large birds and it doesn't really attach well. They haven't touched the smaller one.

How does the vacation feeder attach in cage? Is it this hooks on the bottom? Does it seem secure? Even though I try to keep everyone away from my finches between the cats, dogs and parrot I just don't trust things that hand on open doors. Better safe then sorry I think.

I will look into all these options further, thank you for sharing your methods.

[Sally]

The vacation seed hoppers that I use have hooks on the top back, so they can be hung on the inside of the cage (this is how I have them in most of my cages). On the Prevue F030 cages, I hang the feeders on the outside, but I secure them with mini bungee cords.

[Sojourner]

I make nearly all my bird supply purchases from GlamGouldians.

Here is what I have been using for my finches - one of the first things I did when I got my finches was lose the ginormous seed cups (parrot size, if they weren't also plastic). You could get half a dozen Bengalese in one of those, given the clown-car-crowding nature of the birds, LOL!

My goals for a feed cup are mainly three:

1) keep the seed clean and poop-free - that means too narrow for them to turn around and poop in it.

2) Too small for attempted nesting

3) won't collect a layer of hulls that keep them from getting at seed - basically that means a fairly shallow cup so I can tell at a glance when to dump and replenish rather than having to take ginormous cups out every day and blow hulls off the top.

So these:


http://glamgouldians.com/product-biscuit-cup.php

These will flip off the cage bars when my little guys take off, but I found that wrapping an elastic hair tie around the tabs on the outside keeps them where they are supposed to be.


http://glamgouldians.com/product-cuttlebone-holder.php

The above is the ONLY cuttlebone-holder I have tried that actually works and will keep the cuttlebone clean. Usually I attach a cuttlebone to the side of the cage with a long twist-tie or similar, but those are no good for parakeets, they'd bite right through and maybe hurt themselves on the wire. I tried a couple other commercial holders before this one and they were AWFUL. One in particular was basically just a poop-magnet. This one works and keeps things clean. I have it in the finch cage also.


http://glamgouldians.com/product-art321-watertubew.php

I use the clear one for seed, to replace a similar feeder. The one it replaced was made of really soft and not at all sturdy plastic, but the shape of it was better somehow. I'm not sure exactly how - partly it was more steeply slanted so seeds slide down more easily. The above are really intended for water not seed, though technically they work for either.

Regardless, whatever it is about it that is different, my finchly duo much preferred the old feeder. With this one, they scatter more actual seed instead of just hulls. I don't know if they're just mad and having birdly temper tantrums, or if its something about the design that makes it harder for them to feed from it. It's not TERRIBLE, but as far as actual usage, the old one was better. At least they don't turn around and poop in it, nor try to lay eggs in it. They don't scatter THAT much seed, maybe 90% hulls and 10% seed ends up in the bottom of the cage.

I tried these:


http://glamgouldians.com/product-egg-cup.php

I still use these for the parakeets because they are too small for them to turn around and poop in - but not so the finches. Plus, shortly after I put one in their cage, I found my female finch trying to nest in it. At 1.5" in diameter, they are just large enough to be a problem with the finches

She has another version called a "Mineral Treat cup" that is round with a flat bottom and about 1.25" across and about the same depth that MIGHT work for the finches. A quarter inch is a lot when you're only 4" long, LOL!

I had been using Luscar Thumb cups:



But these are no longer available. I wish I had 100 of them. In fact I just found out today that Luscar (AKA Springfield Tool & Die) went out of business in 2005. So apparently those are gone forever now - and I remember using those 50+ years ago, so that's a long time they were being made.

So I've been hunting something appropriate as a replacement as they are my favorite cups for finches. Big enough they can perch on the edge and eat out of the cup, but too small for them to turn around and poop in or try to nest in. Maybe the mineral cups will do:


http://glamgouldians.com/product-2gr-art41-cup.php

For water I use the same tube silo an earlier poster mentioned, the JW Pet Insight Water silo:



This comes in a small and a large. The small is fine as-is, but the large one tends to tip back from the cage so the water doesn't flow down into the cup the way it should. I solved that by taking the metal clip from an old water silo and using it to clip the top of the silo to the cage.

So personally - given those clips aren't available for purchase by themselves - I only will buy the shorter of the two versions. Besides, my finches will empty the silo if I forget to give them their baths often enough so there's no real use to having a larger silo for them to splash all the water out when they are annoyed with me, LOL!

[Willow]

Thanks so much, Iv been switching them over, still have two of the cups with water but it's already so much nicer. My original finches were well behaved I guess, these guys are more normal.