FINCHforum

Hi all,

Whats the differens between red and yellow spray millets?
Here the red ones is more rare to get and more expensive if you find it..

Hi Emma,

I'm not sure of the biological differences e.g. nutritional content etc etc however I feed mine both but they seem to prefer the red. In the UK we can get both Chinese and French red millet with the French being of slightly better quality (more seeds on the spray). The red millet is smaller than the yellow both in spray and seed size.

My Gouldians love all varieties and demolish a spray in no time flat (they are rearing four chicks at the moment so they are eating everything in sight right now lol)

Hi Simon,

Its the same here, my goulds love the reds, well, they eat the yellow i notime to, but prefer the reds. But i have tried to search for nutrition differens between these two on the net and in som books, but i dont know if im blind ore what, cant find it! But i know i have heard that it IS some difference, and now i cant let it go. I´m to curious!

Red millet and yellow millet are almost the same when coming to basic seed also known as red panicum or red mana are not a very nutritional seed and yellow millet also known as yellow panicum is almost the same with nutrition. These two seeds are two of the tyree seeds used for an austery diet so that says that there's not much in them as fat or nutrition. Treat millet spray as you would seed basically all it is is seed on the stem. If you were talking about it in terms of milk seed then the nutritional value is better. Mine love more the french white millet but will eat all with gusto and even though its not more nutritionally valuable just like seed its more mentally better for them as it gives them something to do. Use what ever you find available due to some are only seasonal.

Thanks Dan!

I have heard some people say that they are different in nutrition, maybe they have got wrong info then and thats why i cant find the info.

And why they prefer the red its just a question of taste maybe then?

It could well be taste, the yellow and red millets are of the same size and both being easily deshelled. If you compare white millet compared to red not only is the spray different white millet is larger and harder in comparison to red millet. Its difficult to say why a finch will like a certain seed compared to a seed which in every aspect is similar take jap millet and shroie, both seed are identical in every way except colour, jap chocolate brown and shroie brown grey, both seeds come in my bag of jap millet but the shroie is eaten first, so in these situation it may just coms down to taste.

Nutritionally no difference beween the two. However mine prefer red to white, probably because of the reasons pointed out by Dan

Different millets are different sizes. The red I get tends to be a smaller seed. I suspect easier to eat and yes very popular with my Zebra Finches.

Emma wrote: Hi Simon,

Its the same here, my goulds love the reds, well, they eat the yellow i notime to, but prefer the reds. But i have tried to search for nutrition differens between these two on the net and in som books, but i dont know if im blind ore what, cant find it! But i know i have heard that it IS some difference, and now i cant let it go. I´m to curious!

The reason for this is because each crop can have a huge variance in nutritional value and protein content, seed typically sold as FEED is of lesser quality than seed that has been tested for germination, purity, and viability - this seed is what is sold for planting or is called "live" seed. As many on the forum can confirm, if you put live seed in your cages your birds will quickly devour them over the other.

I have listed an article below that is very informative and shows the typically averages for nutrition for millets. They are all right around the same and like I said every crop varies but this is what you will get from live seed anyway.

http://www.hort.purdue.edu/newcrop/afcm/millet.html