Canary seed - and other seed to offer caged finches

[Sojourner]

I once bought a wild bird feed mix that turned out to be mostly canary seed. I only feed unmixed seed normally, nyjer and sunflower seed chips.

So I'm actually not sure how I ended up with this stuff, but I went ahead and put it in a feeder - only to discover that NONE of the wild birds that normally come to my feeders would eat it - mostly house finches, gold finches, and purple finches, with the odd song sparrow thrown in there, and rarely other small sparrows.

So they were tossing the canary seed on the ground to get at the nyjer and sunflower chips in the mix. Which was attracting English House Sparrows, grackles, and pigeons galore.

So anyway - canary seed was rigorously refused by all my wild finches.

Yet I see it is often a component - sometimes even a major component - of finch mixes for caged finches.

Do your caged finches actually eat it?

Actually - what particular seeds do your finches usually eat, more often than not? I'm unhappy with most of the blends available to me because of the odd little neon orange/green/pink chunks and dyed seeds in them. The neon chunks, btw, are being left by my finches. I can't really tell what of the other seeds they are and are not eating. At any rate, I'd rather a non-dyed seed mix for my birds, which means I might need to make it up myself.

I will be offering sunflower seeds (hulled) and nyjer, in addition to the mix I have at the moment, which is All Living Things Canary and Finch blend. The first ingredient is White Millet and the second is Canary Grass seed, followed by a couple other kinds of millet and then ever-decreasing proportions of various things that include ground up and powdered ingredients of dubious nutritional value (such as corn).

I have 2 society finches. They obviously like the millet sprays - which some sites say to keep in the cages at all times, and others say are birdy junk food that should be offered only rarely. Which leaves one to wonder why millet is the main ingredient in every small bird seed mix (except when its canary grass seed), but there ya go.

*sigh*

So what do YOU guys do, specifically, for your finches? Because the intertubes are not agreeing!

[debbie276]

I used Herman Brothers seed for years and the birds really liked it. Now I get a seed mix from a local store that mixes their own seed, no colored pellets the birds refuse to eat.

Here's the link to Herman Brothers so you can look at the different mixes and get an idea of what's in them.
http://www.hermanbros-seed.com/

I used the E.M.FINCH and E.M. SOAK SEED without the oats
JAPANESE MILLET
CANARY
SIBERIAN MILLET
FINCH MILLET
WHITE MILLET
STEEL CUT OATS
RED MILLET
THISTLE
FLAX
RAPE
ANISE
SESAME

[kyro]

My basic seed mix is white millet, canary seed, Japanese millet, a little red millet, red/yellow panicum. Sometimes I add a Verselaga finch mix if it is available. My birds (zebras and shaftails and cutthroats don't eat black seeds like niger and rapeseed.

[Sojourner]

Yeah, I had seen Herman's before. I just wasn't sure what sort of mix would be most appropriate.

I'll still try mine on the nyjer and chipped sunflower seeds (I'll have to break them up some because my son bought the last bag of sunflower seeds, and he got the more expensive whole ones, which my wild finches have been taking nibbles off and then dropping the rest for the pigeons, LOL!). In combination with "regular" seed mix, of course.

But I'll worry less about them rejecting the canary seed. If yours are eating it, mine probably will as well. After all, they're from a different continent, so they don't HAVE to have all the likes and dislikes of our local finches.

[Leo519]

My finches like all the varieties of millet.. my Fire finches don't seem to like canary grass seed - but my canary loves it (imagine that!) ..Some of my other finches do eat canary grass seed ..As far as I can tell none of them seem to care for poppy seed (luckily there's only a small amount that comes in the blend I get).. And they all like nyger seed which my canary is particularly fond of.. Some of the flax seed gets eaten but I can't tell which of my birds like it and which ones don't.

All of my birds are gaga for spray millet. I've heard varying opinions on how often to give it to them so I offer it 2-3 times a week as a treat and for variety to their diet. Or for the few times an individual bird has been sick I kept a spray in the hospital cage 24/7 since they love it so much they will at least eat that when they're not feeling well.

[Sheather]

Canary seed is everyone's favorite; society finches, zebras, javas, canaries, diamond doves. They drain the canary seed mix bowl before anything else.

[dunker817]

I'm still learning and trying to find a mix that mine will eat. I will say they don't like canary grass seed and it's in almost every mix. My wild birds at my feeders won't touch canary seed either. And they all dislike nyger almost as much as canary seed. Currently I am feeding Herman Brothers EM Finch mix and am sprouting their regular Finch Mix. But to be honest I will probably start experimenting with a customer mix but buy the seed from Herman Brothers.

[Sojourner]

My wild finches love the nyjer - I'm not sure that the little societies will eat it yet. I'll be able to tell better when I get the individual seed cups I need - right now everything goes into the ginormous ones that came with the cage, and I can't tell by looking at that what they are and are not eating.

Once I have some little treat cups, I will continue to offer that, sunflower chips, and whatever other individual seed I nab over time so I get an idea of what they are and are not eating.

I will most likely order the EM Finch mix from Herman Bros. (and some fine charcoal to add to a mineral mix) and mix it with the seed I already have, so they will be used to the new stuff by the time the current stuff is all gone.

Right now I'm hoping that the one bird who sings IS NOT a male - he/she/it only sings when I play a recording of another male singing. Because I really DON'T want to breed them, these are just little pet store birds to start with - somebody's culls, basically. Not a lot of purpose in breeding them. But if it is a male (the other I'm sure is female), I'll deal with it, I guess.

[debbie276]

If it sings it's male

[Sojourner]

If it sings it's male

NOOOOO!

I thought that some females would sing, but not do the dance? I haven't watched for the dance as the cage is in another room now (where there is no computer to play the recording of the male singing).