How to get African finches to eat softfood?

[A.J.]

Hi All

Me again how do I get my african finches to eat soft food? Or how else can I them to take in more vitamins and calcium and so on? At the moment its only my parrot finches,cubans owls and nuns that are eating the soft food.

Does someone have any idea's?

[wellingtoncdm]

I have heard of people "gut loading" the mealworms with everything from dog food and chick starter to hand feeding formula. The african finches get it by way of mealworm.

[CandoAviary]

I have gotten some to eat boiled egg by grating them so they look like meal worms...I do a mix of meal worms and the egg stips. Most times the finches will so for the freshly shed white mealworms so many times they will go straight for the white boiled egg
Here is a pic of my egg strips and a few dark mealworms... didn't have any fresh shed this day


Now most all of my finches will eat it like this... some with added nestling food/vitamins.

[Justin-2-finches]

I have found too that some finches just will not eat softfood or greens and sometimes never will. But try giving them Soaked/sprouted millet sprays. Soak them for 24hrs then drain off and leave them to sprout untill sprouts are about an inch long. all my finches love it, even the ones that wont touch any thing else, and it is really good for them. Give them vitamins etc in their food/water and you could try feeding the softfood to your mealworms before you feed mealworms to your birds, that way your mealworms might have a bit more goodness inside them.

[L in Ontario]

I'm not sure what kind of African finches you are referring to but my Senegal Fires eat the eggfood just mushed up with soakseed mixed in and even some minced veggies.

You could try giving them just 1/2 teaspoon of eggfood and sprinkle some of their seed on top of it. That will entice them to the small dish of eggfood.

[ac12]

It took several months, but my fire finches are eating egg.
I put the chopped hard boiled egg with veggies.
At first they would only eat the green leafy veggies.
Then the started "trying" the egg, and now they eat the egg. Not scarfing it all down, but they are eating it.

[Sally]

Finches are just like people, in that some of them will absolutely devour eggfood, others pick at it, and a few refuse to eat it. Actually, none of my refuse it, but it took a bit of time with some of them. I mix soaked (just chitted) seed in with mine, and most of the birds go right for it. This is what most of my parents feed to their babies, and my weanlings will clean the plate of eggfood.

[A.J.]

I've got green twinspots, red wing pytilia's, black and white manekins and blue caps. I see the blue caps sometimes pick at the soft food.

I mix some veggies and sprouted seed with the soft food. I'm gonna try some vitamins in the water for say 2 days of the week?

[Jayburd]

perhaps they just don't like it.
But otherwise, get yourself a canary and/or a red faced parrot finch and they will teach your africans what to do ;)