Sprouts

[kyle]

I'm beginning to wonder if I'm feeding too much sprouted seeds. Shortly after bringing my gouls home I started feeding egg food, veggies and sprouted seed in addition to their finch seed in hopes they would breed. After 5 successful babies 3 in one brood two from another I continued with this regime thinking they will start molting and will need the benefit of sprouted seeds. After they have coloured up i plan to cut back on everything but the dry finch seed for about 6 weeks or so then start all over again. I would have to say the sprouted seeds must comprise 60% of their diet is this too much?

[Sally]

What I usually offer each day is an equal amount of sprouts, egg food, and veggies in a dish as a supplement. The rest of their diet is seed, so I would guess that the sprouts are a lot less than 60%, more like 20-25% at most.

[slwatson]

You've all inspired me to try sprouting my own seeds too, so I'm ordering supplies. And Sally, the shipping is so high on the site I'm using, but I don't have much choice. Since Virkon -S is so good at killing bacteria, can it be used to clean natural wood if I found some outside and wanted to use it in my cages?

[Sally]

slwatson Yes, Virkon-S is a disinfectant. I don't even clean the branches I use from my yard, I just cut them and put them in the cages. Others do disinfect the branches, I'm just lazy.

[Babs _Owner]

slwatson This is what I do. Soak the branches in the bathtub with 1 cup of bleach for 12hours. You can use two cups it you just want to be extra careful. A little bleach goes a long way. I rinse all the branches well. Then let the branches dry another 6-12 hours and decorate the cage with them. After branches have been bleached they dry pretty fast. And its cheap!

I really love the Crape Myrtle for my finches because they have interestingly shaped branches with lots of "fingers" of growth on each branch. You can get really artistic.