Pellets switch during parenting?

lia-w · Post by **lia-w** » Sun Jan 20, 2008 1:58 am

So my zebras are sitting on 4 thriving chicks right now, the oldest being 5 days. I just got some of the unflavored zupreem finch pellets today and was thinking that this would be much more nutritious than the seeds I have been giving. I offered both in my cage and the male picked at it but the female did nothing. So my question is, would it be okay to switch them over now, or should I wait under after the chicks grow?

Thank you :]

ladylovesfinch · Post by **ladylovesfinch** » Sun Jan 20, 2008 8:32 am

I would not switch them yet. I would offer a hard boiled egg, shredded or use two knives and chop it up. My zebra's loved this when they had a clutch. It would probably be okay to offer the pellets, but I think the egg food would be better and easier for them to feed the chicks. In my experience zebra finches are good parents

Just wanted to add that when I had the Zebra's with chicks I left the shell on the egg when shredding. Since then I have read to take the egg shell off when parents are feeding chicks. Also, there are a couple of good web-sites here that have recipes for egg food; ejaviary.com & fairestfinches.

This is all pretty new to me, but I am constantly learning & this forum has been an excellent resource.

Post by **Sally** » Sun Jan 20, 2008 12:01 pm

ladylovesfinch gave you good advice. You never want to switch food completely when finches are incubating or feeding babies, as they may stop feeding the babies. You can always offer things on the side, in a treat cup or small dish, and let them pick and choose.

lia-w · Post by **lia-w** » Sun Jan 20, 2008 6:14 pm

Perfect! Thank you both. I have been offering them egg food, veggis, seeds, millet(which they do not like and I do not know why :\), and now pellet food. The babies are quite fat and adorable :]

Thanks again.

chrischris · Post by **chrischris** » Sun Feb 10, 2008 10:39 am

Pellets can be deadly when ther are chicks around. I fed my goulds a 100% pellet diet when they had chicks and all the chicks died because the parents were unable to regurgitate the pellets for the chicks.

So now no pellets when they are with chicks and if there are no chicks I'll do a 80-90%seed to 10-20%pellet mixture for the finches.

Chris

lia-w · Post by **lia-w** » Sun Feb 17, 2008 11:32 pm

Oh, wow. I would have never thought of that. Thank you for the GREAT heads up. :]

ac12 · Post by **ac12** » Tue Feb 24, 2009 1:03 am

New guy here....

My just as my zebra finches started laying eggs, I started putting a handfeed food into a food dish. They ate that, then once the eggs hatched, and they were feeding the chicks they virtually ignored the seed, and 90% of the time ate the hand feed food.

My guess is because it was giving them the nutrients their body needed, and it was easy to regurgitate to the chicks.

I did not think of mixing ground up pellets into the handfeed food once the chicks were out of the nest. I did not realize how big they had grown inside the nest, or I would have tried to mix ground pellet even earlier. Now I'm dealing with the chicks who are as picky eaters who ignore the pellets as much as their parents do.

franny · Post by **franny** » Tue Feb 24, 2009 12:09 pm

My personal opinion is that the pellets are not the best thing to feed anyway. They may be excellent, nutritionally...but to me it would be a bit like eating nothing but oatmeal all day long.

Finches beaks were made for husking seeds, and a good mix of seeds is something they should always have available IMO. I would think that offering some pellets, either in a separate dish, or mixed in with the seed would be fine, but I would not personally feed pellets as a substitute for seed.

If the babies don't like it, then I wouldn't worry about it. As long as they are getting good eggfood, greens, a good finch seed mix, cuttlebone and/or oystershell, then they are getting what they need.

ac12 · Post by **ac12** » Thu Feb 26, 2009 8:49 pm

I followed the instructions in the FIC and I've got the 4 chicks and mom eating pellets, even when they have seeds available. Dad still just looks at the pellets and turns away. At least now they are getting more balanced nutrition eating both seeds and pellets than just the few types of seeds they were eating before. They were leaving about 70% of the seeds uneaten, really picky eaters.

I removed the seeds at night, leaving only a tray of pellets.
Then in the morning, I would wait a couple of hours after the light goes on before I would give them seeds. I'm guessing that they were hungry enough to "try" the pellets, and this got through their aversion barrier. Prior to this, when I put both pellets and seeds out, they would only look at the pellets and turn away.

Thanks for the info about feeding babies and pellets. If I have another clutch, I will stop the pellets during the baby feeding period, and just feed them seeds and the handfeed mix that I used for this clutch.