FINCHforum

I was at The Christmas Tree Shoppe today, looking for some new low dishes for egg food and treats today. They had several of the various Bob's Redmill products. I remembered seeing flax mentioned on here as being nutritious, so I grabbed a package of the organic ground flaxseed meal. It has no other added ingredients.
I am thinking of adding this to their hardboiled egg to dry it out a bit so it will be okay to leave while I am at work and they are feeding babies.
Is this a good thing to add?
Also, what else can I do with it? Can it add it to birdie bread? How much should I put in?

Nelissa, it is high in protein. I mentioned it last week in regards to healthy snacks for birds. I ground it and added it to eggfood and served it in a separate dish. The birds, especially my owls and black cheek loved it.

I also ground hulled sunflower chips and tried that yesterday, some of the birds downed it, others picked at it.

cindy wrote:Nelissa, it is high in protein. I mentioned it last week in regards to healthy snacks for birds. I ground it and added it to eggfood and served it in a separate dish. The birds, especially my owls and black cheek loved it.

I also ground hulled sunflower chips and tried that yesterday, some of the birds downed it, others picked at it.

I have some sunflower seeds too, so I will try grinding them up and offering them as well. How do you grind yours?

I found a coffee grinder by Hamilton Beach at Wal-Mart for $14.99. It does a great job at powdering the seeds and pellets .

I tried grinding red millet, they would not eat it whole. I am not sure if it was to hard but after grinding it some of the birds downed it...my owls eat/try everything.

I bought aviflax when the bag of flax seeds I bought from whole foods developed maggots. My bird ate the aviflax just fine. Sometimes I add it to the pellets. Now I went back to the whole seeds, this time the viable stuff, not from whole foods.

I will have to check it out, I buy the organic flaxseed and have not had a problem with it. I also grind bee pollen, they love it.

I did some reading online about flax. It is recommended to store it in the freezer, especially after it is ground, for 2-3 months. Exposure to light and heat reduces the amount of nutrition in it. Whole seeds are okay at room temp for up to a year because the seed casing helps it retain nutritional content (the omega-3 and lignans). The stuff I bought is in an opaque package for this reason.

Ooh yeah I need to store seeds properly. The batch of flax I bought was in a plastic bag. One day soon after I bought it, I noticed some fiber in it, like cobweb. When I took a close look I found something wriggling around, must be making cocoon? Insect eggs must have gotten into the storage.

I would not add flaxseed on a daily basis it is high in fat 11g, sodium 15mg, carbs 10g protein 6 g, calcium 6% and 8%. Use it maybe once in a while in small amounts and alternate it will other foods and ground seeds added to eggfood. (the percentages and nutritional facts are bases on 3 tablespoons). Bear in mind sunflower seed chips also contain a large amount of fat.

Other seeds to grind and try are red millet, niger, white proso...anything they are not going for in your mix...als try chitting the seeds they are readily eating and adding those to the eggfood mix.

cindy wrote:I found a coffee grinder by Hamilton Beach at Wal-Mart for $14.99. It does a great job at powdering the seeds and pellets .

I have a Bullet that I use exclusively for bird food. After I boil the eggs for their eggfood, I put the eggshells in the Bullet then dump the powder into a sieve to get catch the larger pieces and 'skin'. I mix some of this 'shell powder' in with the eggfood, and some I just serve as is. They love it and the Bullet does a great job. I imagine your coffee grinder would work just as well.

I use a one-touch chopper (sort of a super small food processor) for their eggfood. I cut it into quarters, shell and all, then run it through the chopper, and it does a pretty good job. I dont think it would do well grinding small stuff, like seeds, though. Maybe I will get the birds a coffee grinder for Christmas.

Judy, that is a great idea...I find it is sometimes less wastefull to give some birds pellet and seeds ground, especially little ones learning their way around a food dish for the first time. The coffee grinder powders it so fine, also. I will try the egg shells, an alternative to buying Hatched.