FINCHforum

Is it safe to give my zebra finches fruit & vegies from the fruit & vegie shop? I'm concerned about the spraying these vegies etc may have had. Is washing them sufficient or do I need to buy organic produce?

Cheers!
Chainey

I don't usually buy organic produce, just wash everything off before I eat it or I feed it to the birds. As far as I know, no ill effects.

I just wash everything too... I don't necessarily purchase organic either, just regular stuff at the grocery store. Mine love it and I don't believe it has ever been the cause of a sickness.

These are the only three things I've had finches die from:

Eggbound
Old age
Dehydration (I know... could have been prevented, but I had one orange cheek that I didn't realize couldn't drink from a water bottle like all the other finches could! I will never make this mistake again!)

A good rule is to rinse them -- just like you would your own food.

I don't think organic is necessary. Finches are surprisingly not as delicate as they look sometimes .

Great! thanks everyone.
I'm going to raid the fridge now and see what they like

They absolutely LOVE cucumber and broccoli, wow I cant believe how much they ate! Beats seed I guess...

I'm heading out now to buy some egg mix...we'll see how that goes too.

Thanks again!

My little pair of gouldians love bits of broccoli and romaine lettuce.

Most the finches at my store love romaine lettuce, and pick at the shredded carrots, shredded zucchini, shredded sweet potato... but completely ignore the bananas and oranges we offer.

The egg & biscut mix is a hit as well....Squeak just loves it AND they both seem less fussed about me having to put my hand in the cage to change food and water...great!

I was feeding mine parsley before I just read that it can be toxic to them on the list of plants.
seems unfair since they really loved it.

Is parsley toxic? My birds love it and I thought it was on the okay list.
I've not seen any problems with the birds. Help...

I believe parsley is one of those that is optional. I think that there have been cases where people have thought that parsley was the cause of their birds getting sick.

I would feed it to them if they like it, but in moderation. Maybe every other week.

There are so many other options to feed them too...

you might try some,cucumber my birds love it and tomatoes.cut into slices of course!

ken

Well my two gouldians love the broccoli too......

When you give your birds the fruit and some veggies like cucumber or ornages I find it is very wet but my birds really don't eat anything wet. Is this normal or is there a way to give it to them but still get the healthy side of it?

So far I have only found the broccoli and romaine lettuce are the only foods they will eat so far....

I find with my birds there are very few veggies that every single bird will eat--broccoli is one, but most of them don't like carrots. I think when you have a group of birds in an aviary setting, they all see one bird trying out the food, so they are more likely to try it out too. When you have only a pair or a few in a cage, they are more picky.

i think they are just like humans "picky" i suppose some birds will like stuff that others dont eat i would not let the thing with the birds not eating wet stuff i had some canaries that would not eat rearing food when they had youngsters!

ken