Bugs for Birdies

[Corkysgirl]

Especially at dinner time...or supper time as they say in Maine. Only outdoor birds need bugs. I declare it so!

[Fire-tail]

Hi

Are mealworms ok?
I know that they are meant to eat them but when I put a plate in they don't really eat them. They need something small for them to eat.

[Sally]

Fire-tail Mealworms are fine to feed, but most of the ones you can buy locally at a pet shop are too big for finches to like. Finches like the mini size mealworms, which you usually have to order online or grow your own.

Welcome to the forum! There's lots of good reading at the Finch Information Center, linked at left, and the members are always ready to help. If you put your general location in your profile, it helps when answering locale-specific questions. What kind of finches do you have?

[MiaCarter]

Fire-tail -- I give dried mealworms and I crush them up into a powder.
I used to try to give them whole or in halves,even quarters.
My guys won't touch them unless they're crushed up.

[Fire-tail]

Hi
Thanks for the information. I am trying to breed the mealworms they are very slow to breed. Does anybody know any quicker way to breed mealworms?
The finches that I have are

20 zebra finches/5 babies zebra finches so cute
25 bengalese finches
3 orange breasted finches
1 star finch (does anybody have any star finches for sale)
3 red faced parrot finches
1 rudy

[Sally]

There are lots of youtube videos out there showing how to set up/breed mealworms. I think this article is one of the best I've seen:

http://www.wildcare.org.au/easy-referen ... lworms.pdf

I've been using a three-drawer system (12"x12"x3" drawers), and I think I'll see if I can adapt the top drawer as described in this article. According to this, they will grow faster with more light and more food.

[Justino222]

Fire-tail the higher the temp. The faster they grow and multiply. They move around and are very active in warm temps which cause them to use engery, eat to replace it and then grow faster. When they are cold they use less resources and dont grow nearly as fast. I keep my mealworms at 80 degrees.

[Justino222]

My mealworms turned into pupae!!

[Fire-tail]

Thank you Justino222
I have been growing the mealworms and I did not no that they needed heating.

[Justino222]

Well as long as its not cold haha. I keep mine at about 78 degrees but i never go past 80°. And they are molting. Like. Crazy and really thriving. I have them in my bird room which naturally stays around 75. But there are many ways to give them heat. But not a necessity

[Corkysgirl]

Mia, I did it! I put a wiggling creature in my birds dish tonight. It was a start! It's the closest I've come to feeding them worms and such. It was too big to eat but I so wish the batteries to the camera weren't dead so I could have filmed them staring tipping their heads as they (all three juveniles) sat in the large seed bowl I put him in. "He" was a large green inch worm that my husband brought home on his hat from White Cap Mountain while picking blueberries. They didn't know what to make of him and pecked at him a little. He finally met his demise. So cute!

[MiaCarter]

Corkysgirl -- Good for you!

They're *hilarious* when they see a live bug for the first time!
It's too funny! They're often unsure of what to do with it, tipping their heads like "What the heck is that thing??!....Do I eat it, or...??"

I bet they enjoyed it!
Clever to give the caterpillar!
We get these enormous io moth caterpillars
http://tinyurl.com/q3vhchx

They're actually quite beautiful. But they have little stingers in their fur, so I wouldn't want to give it to the birds. (I actually pull them off my plants using metal tongs. Otherwise, they'll devour an entire hibiscus plant! I call it my caterpillar relocation program! Off my plants and into the palmetto cluster in the field behind my house!)

@Justino222 --- How are those mealworms coming along??

[euphonia]

All my finches love meal worms live and some termites also abd gave them small crickets and also they went crazy for them

[Corkysgirl]

Mia, They were really funny because they never saw anything alive and it was a little over an inch, quite big for them...and bright green. I'll attach a picture. Not prickly...smooth skin. My husband went back up today to pick more blueberries. He goes once per year atop the mountain 3 miles straight up. He said there's so many blueberries if a large town's populous picked for a week it wouldn't even make a dent. So...I expect more inch worms today to entertain the juveniles with. He always comes back with quite a few. I never saw the stinger kind here. Must be a Florida thing.

[finchmix22]

Corkysgirl
Did they try to eat the worm? Cute worm though. I love blueberries! I used to pick them when I was in Maine/Vermont as a kid.