Food to feed while breeding...

chrischris · Post by **chrischris** » Mon Jan 26, 2009 9:28 pm

Just want to know what others here think is the most important food to feed while their goulds are nesting.

Chris

Matt · Post by **Matt** » Mon Jan 26, 2009 9:37 pm

Mine get their usual seed mix with herb seeds added. sprouted seed with soft food mixed in, half ripe seeding grasses and cucumber.
When feeding young this is offered twice a day. Some pairs don't take the cucumber, but all love the seeding grass and will take it from my hand when feeding young.

chrischris · Post by **chrischris** » Mon Jan 26, 2009 9:46 pm

Matt wrote:Mine get their usual seed mix with herb seeds added. sprouted seed with soft food mixed in, half ripe seeding grasses and cucumber.
When feeding young this is offered twice a day. Some pairs don't take the cucumber, but all love the seeding grass and will take it from my hand when feeding young.

I've kept away from sprouted seeds and only give the commercial egg food which tends to keep longer do you find that they take to the sprouted seeds mixed in with the soft food and do you change it daily when it's not eaten up or just leave it there till they finish with it?

Chris

dfcauley · Post by **dfcauley** » Tue Jan 27, 2009 7:34 am

I just feed the same thing year round. Some bird is always breeding in my aviary....

greens, soaked seeds, chickweed (when available) cucumber, eggfood, corn etc.....

Matt · Post by **Matt** » Tue Jan 27, 2009 8:15 am

All of my birds eat the sprouted seed. I feed it at the rate of one teaspoon per pair and triple that if feeding young. I find at this rate there is little or none left in the afternoon. If they are feeding young, I give them a top up about an hour before dark to make sure they have full crops before dark.

L in Ontario · Post by **L in Ontario** » Tue Jan 27, 2009 10:06 am

Mine pretty well get the same year round as well since when they are not breeding they are moulting and need the extra protein.

So in addition to thier normal dry Vitaseed, they get hardboiled egg (with the shell) mixed with soaked seed. I leave a flat dish of this on the cage floor in the morning when I leave for work and remove it when I get home. If there are babies in - those cages get a refill at that time and I remove it just before lights-out. Of course they also have another dish with dry commercial eggfood all the time and the baby cages will have some handfeeding formula mixed into the egg food. Another dish always has Herb Salad and one with Charcoal/Calcium Grit, Spray Millet is always available in the baby cages too (cages where the parents are feeding babies). And then there's the supp's to the water (iodine, calcium, vits on alternating days)...

ac12 · Post by **ac12** » Fri Feb 27, 2009 3:00 am

I gave my Zebras Lafferts Nutri Start.
I make it into a paste like very soft mashed potatoes.
I started feeding it when I first saw eggs, to give them time to get used to it. And they did. When the chicks hatched, they really went after the hand feed mix, and almost ignored the seeds.

They kept eating it till the chicks weaned.
When I did not hear the chicks begging, I just stopped giving it, since the purpose for it had ended.

From the perspective of a green novice, I think it worked, as 4 of 4 hatchlings survived to juvenilles.

To me the hardest part was changing the mix every 3-4 hours (during the day) as it was mixed w water I did not want it to spoil. Although they usually ate everything I mixed. But it was hard to guess how much to mix, some times it was totally eaten, sometimes I had leftover.

L in Ontario · Post by **L in Ontario** » Fri Feb 27, 2009 8:53 am

If you want to know the 1 most important food to feed while breeding - I think it's the hardboiled eggfood (for protein) and then add / provide everything else.

ac12 · Post by **ac12** » Fri Feb 27, 2009 2:22 pm

Liz
Come to think of it, they ate the egg while they were incubating and feeding the chicks, but now they don't go for it like they used to. Its like the "need to eat egg" switch turned off.

L in Ontario · Post by **L in Ontario** » Fri Feb 27, 2009 2:28 pm

Very true, ac. When they are not breeding/feeding chicks they won't need as much protein and they won't eat nearly as much of it. But they will need a little more when they start to go through their annual moult or start breeding again.

ac12 · Post by **ac12** » Fri Feb 27, 2009 3:29 pm

The chicks have just started their molt, I'm cleaning tiny feathers off the floor every day. So sounds like I better keep giving them egg, even if they don't seem so keen on it right now.