FINCHforum

I bought a 4 oz tub of the stuff when my finches started breeding back in like January. I noticed in the tub when I first got it that there are several dessicant packets in there, which I left in there, and now I understand why they're there. Each time I would go to use it, it became more and more difficult to sprinkle, even caked up in little chunks. When I'd sprinkle it on the seed, it would always make the seed stick together and just gunk up. I just unscrewed the jar, and now it is a literal brick of breeding bird formula. This stuff seems exceptionally sensitive to humidity. Being from the Gulf Coast area in Texas, I am doomed. I keep it indoors in the A/C. As soon as I noticed it was beginning to cake up, I put the jar in a baggie and sealed it, but it's not helping. Is there any way I can safely re-dry it, put rice in it, or any other suggestions to save it and make it useful again? Do the dessicant packets get used up eventually?

Ugh -- that's a bummer.
I'm in Florida on the other side of the Gulf, so I've had the exact same problem.
It seems those little dessicant packets do lose their effectiveness with time.

I might try to break it up as much you can and put it in the oven (or toaster oven, depending on how much you have) at 100-150-ish for a little while to dry it up. (No idea now long it would take. I imagine it depends on how big the chunks are.)
Then once dry, I'd put it in the grinder to powder it up again.
I did this with my styptic powder the other day (except I didn't need the grinder. I just used the back of a spoon to break up the chunks once they were dry.)

I think the rice is a great idea, but I don't know how hard it would be to pick out rice? But I'd try it to help keep it dry. Or maybe add rice by putting it in some sort of mesh so it's in there, but not mixed in?

I've taken to putting duct tape around the rim of powders that are prone to caking up like this. It works nicely.

Thanks for the suggestions. I thought about putting it in the oven but didn't know how that would affect potency or efficacy.

I'd read the label to see if it has any "don't expose to heat" mentions on there?

I think as long as you heat it up without cooking it, you should be okay.
If in doubt, I might do it on lower heat for a bit longer of a timeframe. My toaster oven goes as low as 100. So you could do that with the door open a crack.

My thought is that it's essentially ruined if you leave it as-is. So no harm in trying, right?

I might even shoot an email to the manufacturers to see if they can comment on whether the efficacy will be impacted by heating it a bit.
If so, probably better to just toss it vs. spending all the effort on drying it out. (Or even see if they'll replace it for you? In theory, it shouldn't clump up like that if you have the top sealed, with a sufficient quantity of dessicant canisters inside.)

But definitely try the duct tape trick. Works great as long as you seal it good around the top.

If you keep it in the fridge or freezer it'll help as well. At least in my experience

A suggestion for putting rice in the container-
Put some in a square piece of cheesecloth, and tie it up, like a little sachet. Then you wouldn't have to worry about picking out the rice. For a large container, You could put in a few "packets" of it, dispersed throughout the container.
Something else that might work is a small mesh tea infuser. I'm not sure if the stainless steel mesh would be ok if there's moisture, though. It might rust over time...

I contacted Morning Bird directly and told them the issue. They recommend refrigeration or freezing for storage and said that heat and, of course, humidity or moisture will adversely affect the product. They are replacing it for me after I send them the product information that is on the bottom of the tub, so I guess I will try again and hope that refrigeration does the trick for me. If not, I will switch to a different product.

They mentioned that it is best used on fresh vegetables and sprouted seed, and that to sprinkle it on dry seed it would just fall to the bottom, but it just made the seed gunk up and stick together when I sprinkled it on there. *shrug*

I have the same problem. Good thing I live alone, otherwise I'd look insane with my repeatedly stabbing into the container with a spoon.

One thing I did try before I got my replacement jar was to put it in the freezer for several days. Then I took the whole block of stuff out of the jar, and put rice in. I put the rice in cheese cloth first. Then I crushed the block with a mallet to break it into small chunks, crushing the smaller chunks then with mortar and pestle and returning it to the jar, then putting the jar back into the freezer. I was actually able to use it again after that.

When I received my replacement jar of it (Thank you Morning Bird for your great customer service, by the way), I immediately put it in the freezer. I think that will do the trick from now on. I didn't think it would really dehydrate it, but freezing seemed to make it able to return to a powder and stay that way after I ground it with the mortar and pestle.

KarenB Putting it in the freezer adds time to the expiration date also, I forget the ration....1 month per...Laraine just told me...sorry, I forget. About future issues, you can make your own silicon packs. http://www.ehow.com/how_8485935_make-ow ... ckets.html if you have issues in the future. I don't think it's a great idea to heat it because it has amino acids, etc. and it will just diminish the potency. You can also order the silicon packs online, Amazon or many other places. Just thinking you may have future issues if you live in a humid area. I did, living in Maryland for over 20 years. Also...baby diapers have silicon in it, in a pinch, you can use that as a moisture absorber. It's good you found a solution.

Ya know, I didn't think about it before, but I use puppy pads on the bottom of my smaller flight, and I could just cut a piece of one to fit into the jar. It uses the same thing as a diaper, only thinner.

KarenB It probably has the little beads of silicon in it also. If it does, it should work.

Corkysgirl I ended up ordering a small lot of those silicone packets. I hadn't thought of the obvious Thanks for the suggestion! I figured I could use them in a few other places, like seed, etc. The ones I got are 2.5 inches by 1.5 inches, so quite a bit larger than the several tiny ones that come with the Breeder's Blend, but still be able to fit in the jar and large enough to last a while.

That's good. They're really good for a lot of things. If you Google what they're good for, I saw a link about them the other day...about saving them from pill pack because of their many uses. Here in Maine, people will purchase the beads in bulk and mix it with the dirt in their gardens around the plants because it will hold the water/moisture longer during times of drought. I don't but an elderly man and his friends talk about it at the kitchen table at my in-laws all the time. It's funny how things have so many uses.