FINCHforum

I went grocery shopping the other day and picked up a few things for a casserole that I'll probably be making tonight. I was hoping the finches might be able to have a few of the ingredients.

The recipe called for wild rice, so I bought a container of RiceSelect Royal Blend Whole Grain rice. The ingredients list: Texmati brown rice, soft white wheat, rye berries and wild rice. Could the birds have this? Any particular way it needs to be prepared?

Secondly, the recipe also calls for slivered almonds. I bought two packages. If I took a few slivers and pounded them up small with a meat mallet, could the finches have them? I know bigger birds can have nuts, but I've never seen it with finches.

I found this on the Finch INfo Center...hope it is helpful

Protease inhibitors inhibit digestive enzymes and, when present in high levels in the diet, may decrease the avian body's ability to digest proteins and lead to pancreatic hypertrophy. Although these enzyme inhibitors are present to a degree in all plants, significant levels are found in all legumes, corn, lettuce, oats, peas, peanuts, barley, beets, buckwheat, wheat, rice, rye, turnips, sweet potatoes and potatoes (in VERY high amounts).5 Luckily protease inhibitors are readily inactivated by cooking,5 so if any of the above-listed food sources are going to constitute a major part of your birds' diet, you should cook them first.

I feed cooked rice to my birds occasionally, when I have leftover rice from something. Just plain cooked of course, without anything else. I also occasionally feed pasta, chinoa, or couscous. Same here: just plained cooked without any add-ons.
My birds like these as treats and I don't have any problems. I think the comment from the finch information center emphasizes that these foods can be a problem if you use them as "major" diet. The key is diversity. As much as you youself shouldn't eat only rice (or whatever else) every day and nothing else, the same goes for the birds. If you feed them a balanced seed/pellet diet and enhance with all sorts of veggies, fruit, rice etc., that's good for them.

I never tried almonds. Can't see anything wrong with it though, if you want to try as a treat.