Alternative food for finches

[hdn]

Hi all,

I am visiting this site for a while. Very nice forum! I always love small birds (finches and canaries), and last week I decided to get some for me. I got 2 spice finches and a male pin-tailed whydah a long with a large Designer Aviaries bird cage (30"wide by 20"deep by 63" tall -overall) - for $60 from Craigslist. cool price!

The previous owner gave me a jar of seeds, and the birds are fine with the seeds. However when I gave those birds more healthy food such as egg food I bought from Petco or when I gave fresh green vegetable food a long with their normal seeds, those birds didn't even touch them.

I even leave less seeds for them to eat and let them have egg food. I know they become hungry, but they make more noise until I put a full dish of seeds that they like, then they become quiet. (This method always works with my 10 months daughter. My daughter always wants junk food (chips, cookies..) and doesn't want to drink formula. Then if I let my daughter becomes hungry for 30 minutes, she happily accepts the formula).

It has been for a week now, and my birds till reject the new food. Do you think my birds come from royal families? Why are they so difficult to serve?

[ac12]

When you give them new food, sometimes takes a LONG time for them to accept it as food. Just be patient and persistent.

Read this in the finch info center
http://www.finchinfo.com/diet/introducing_new_foods.php

I did essentially what the link said
- in the evening about 7pm, I remove their old food
- in the morning just after lights on, I put the new food in the same dish in the same place that their old food was in.
- I leave the new food for 2 hours, then put their old food back.
- Over a few weeks I gradually increase the time before I put their old food back; first to 3 hours, then to 4 hours. Usually by the time I get to 4 hours, they are eating the new food.

If you are working during the day, then you can only do this during the weekend. But you can also try a variation of this
- as soon as you get home, remove their old food and replace it with the new food.
- put their old food back in the morning before you go to work

BTW by you giving in to them sqwaking, they know they can hold out till you give them their old food.

You can also mix the new food and their old food together. Then hope that they will try the new food also.

[flrancho]

It can take a while for finches to accept a new food, and sometimes you have a finch that may just not like a particular item. Other finches can be encouraged sometimes by finches that are more adventurous eaters.

I know you didn't ask this, but just to give you a heads up about your pin-tailed whydah. I don't know how much you know about them or how much you were told about them before you got him, but the males can be extremely aggressive. I have two (a male and a female) and both were ok for a while while they were young. However, after a while, I'm assuming upon reaching breeding maturity, my male became super aggressive to the point where I felt he would either seriously injure or even kill my other birds. Don't be surprised if at some point you have to separate him because of his aggressiveness. Keep a close eye on him.... mine was real good at being nasty either when I wasn't there or doing it so silently I wouldn't expect anything was wrong. The only reason I knew he was being so mean is that I heard one of my birds make a crying noise one day, went over to the flight to investigate only to find that he had bitten down on the head of my OC Waxbill, picked him up off the perch and was dangling him from the top of the perch. The Whydah never made a peep, and if it wasn't for the pitiful crying of my OC, I never would have known anything was up.

[hdn]

Gary, thanks your advices and the link you provided. They are very helpful to me. I should be more patient and step-by-step have my birds accept the new food. That is what I'd like to learn because I am sure I will get some more finches, especially the green singer and the strawberry, for I've heard they are good singers.

flrancho, thanks for the warning. I did some research about the pin-tailed whydah males, and know they are aggressive. But finches are opposite. The two spice finches pick on the pin-tailed whydah; the privious own even told me this. Probably the pin-tailed whydah is too old (he is about 10 years old). On some web sites, they said the pin-tailed whydah can live up to 16 years. But my pin-tailed whydah is still very healthy and not aggressive at all. He likes to jump and fly virtically ... like a ping-pong ball hitting the table. That is amazing.

[Chichireeo]

Hi, I find that presentation is important. I would not use a new dish to offer a new food. For the egg food, have you tried boiled egg mashed up? That would certainly be fresher than petco's packaged foods. You can also sprinkle some premium seeds on the egg food to make it enticing. As for the veg, how do you offer it? I assume you're not using the same dish as the seed. Try to make the presentation unobtrusive.

[Jodi]

Hi! What worked for me was placing their seed and some millet sprinkles on top of their new food. Once I notice they are eating the new food, I gradually reduce the seed and millet. I don't have many finches but none of them would go near the new food until I started doing it this way. It only took a couple of days before curiousity took over. Now they wait for me to place the dish in their cage and practically clean out the yummy dish before heading over to their seed hopper or millet spray.