The Best Diet For Shaft-Tails?

[Emberrhine]

Greetings, everyone!

I feel pretty confident in the diet I currently feed my shaft-tails, but I'm always looking for ways I can take even better care of my birds, so if you know of anything else I can add to my diet or if you notice any potential problems with it, I'd love to hear your advice!

First, the birds: I have two adult Shaft-tails, one male and one female. They live in a 2 1/2-foot-long flight cage right now, but will be moved to a 60''-long one later this year with four other Shaft-tails.

They do not get out-of-cage time for their safety, but they are pretty active within their cage. I have attempted to breed them before (with sad results, I might add, but that's a topic for another day), but they are not currently set up for breeding and they won't be again until next spring.

So, that's two adult non-breeding finches, soon to be six adult non-breeding finches, which will eventually be set up for breeding again but not for quite some time.


Now, the diet at the aviary where I work:

This is the diet that I look to for inspiration when feeding my own finches. It's an all-purpose diet meant to feed a wide spectrum of birds, from finches to softbills to doves to hookbills. Just curious what you all think of it: It's a mixture of crumbled hard-boiled eggs, shredded greens, finch seed mix, soaked passerine and parrot pellets, sweet potato chunks, apple chunks, papaya chunks, beans, and rotational weekly items like bananas, grapes, berries and corn. Live mealworms and extra seed are served separately. Just to make things clear, bear in mind that I do not feed this to my own birds. It is what we feed the birds at work, and I've borrowed ideas from it.

Finally, what I feed my own finches:

Every morning I offer a small portion of a moist mix food that I prepare myself. It consists of a crumbled "birdie bread" muffin (made of cornbread, baby food, and fruit chunks), cooked tiny star-shaped pasta, finely-blended frozen veggies/beans, whole kernels of frozen corn, fresh shredded greens, fresh carrot shreds, slivered almonds, soaked cockatiel pellets and finch pellets, and 1/4 a slice of multigrain bread, ripped into little chunks. Everything frozen mentioned here is microwaved to thaw before being fed out. This moist mix is also given to my cockatiels, hence the cockatiel pellets.

I add the moist mix to a flat plate along with finch seed mix and a bit of dry Quiko Exotic egg food.

I also offer fresh greens like endive, spinach, or kale every day.

Calcium sources are always available and include dried eggshell, a cuttlebone, mineral grit, and Repti-Cal calcium powder, which is sprinkled on top of the moist mix 2x a week. (Is it okay to use calcium powder meant for reptiles? My Shaft-tail hen lays a lot of eggs and I want to ensure she has plenty of calcium. Repti-Cal is the only calcium powder I can find at the pet store, and I prefer to use a jar of powder rather than scraping away at a messy cuttlebone.)

A millet spray is always available, too.

In the evening I dump the old food, clean the dish, and refill it with finch seed and 2-4 live mealworms, heads chopped off before putting them on the plate. I also add a bit of nutrient-supplemented seed at this time, especially during molting/breeding.

I think this seems like a pretty well-rounded diet, but I'm definitely interested in improving it if you guys see something that needs changing, or have any suggestions for something new I could try. I am considering adding crumbled hard-boiled egg to the diet, but I'm not sure if I should add it to the moist mix or blend it with the Quiko egg food...

Thanks for the advice,

-Ember

[debbie276]

A couple pages that are helpful on the Finch Information Center are:
Nutrients & Their Sources
http://www.finchinfo.com/diet/nutrients_and_sources.php
Safe, Toxic, & Unsafe Foods
http://www.finchinfo.com/diet/safe_toxi ... _foods.php

Welcome to the forum
Hard boiled egg are the best food and I would definitely add it to their diet. Try not to dilute the protein and nutrients with a lot of extra additives.
Sounds like you are offering a whole lot of supplements. Be sure to read the labels and not double and triple up on things, too much can be as bad as not enough.
I would also have their seed mix available at all times.

[cindy]

I have a couple of recipes for bird bread using pellets instead of the cornbread mix (which contains sugars and salts)

1/2 cup pellets ground if you choose ~ 1/4 cup wheat germ ~ 1/4 dried egg food... 4 eggs Mix well. Once mixed pour into a greased baking dish and bake at 350*. Bake until done and when a toothpick is inserted it comes out clean. Turn the oven off, leave the baked mix in the oven to dry it out more. Once cooled run it through a food processor then finely grind or slice it and leave it whole. Serve.... :> chopped veggies can also be added, but you will need to remove it if not eaten completely since the veggies make it moist and can spoil quicker. I serve the chopped veggies on the side.

I would add dark leafy veggies to the mix of fresh foods... kale chopped and romaine are two mine like. Apple and certain fruits do not give as much vitamins and minerals as some of the darker veggies, folic acid is very important... I use refer to these guides for recommended veggies that are most beneficial even though some of the articles are titled with the word parrot it them...

http://gulfcoastfinches.com/the_green_day_diet

http://www.landofvos.com/articles/kitchenxiii.html

this article discusses a pelleted diet... I use both pellets and seed and dark leafy veggies. Try finely shredded or chopped carrots. I have finches and hookbills. I do not give fruit like apples and grapes since as discussed in the article it is a lot of starch, sugar and water, to much sugar in the det is not healthy...occasionally once a month if that my hookbills will get a small piece of fruit like a sliver of an apple, conure gets a bit of banana ( a better choice in regards to nutrition). http://drsophiayin.com/blog/entry/birds ... than_seeds

safe plant and herb list... http://www.cockatielcottage.net/houseplants.html

[cindy]

since you are already soaking pellets and do a bread...try combining them


*13 eggs (crushed shells optional, I usually omit them or grind them to a powder in a coffee grinder and add)
*1 cup Roudybush Soak and Feed Sahara Sunrise blend (optional)
*1 cup of soaked Roudybush Nibbles pellets (if not using the soak and feed adjust the pellets to 1 3/4 to 2 cups)

*optional
Chopped carrots
Chopped kale or other veggies
fruit is optional but in small amounts.

Mix well, pour into a greased cooking dish (I used coconut oil or Pam) and bake at 375 degrees for 30 minutes or until done. Cool and serve or this can be cut up and used within a day or so.

Keep extra in the fridge make sure it is completely cooled prior to closing the lid on the container and putting in the fridge...if not condensation builds up and the bread becomes "wet" and you run the risk of mold developing. Different veggies even fruit can be used in the recipe. This can be frozen after completely cooled. To dry the bread out further you can turn the oven off when the bread is done cooking and leave the baking dish in the oven until the oven cools.

You can use dried herbs.... if using certain veggies or fruits this recipe will not last as long, you can make this minus the fruits and veggies.

[Sally]

A very simple birdie bread is this one from Vonda Zwick, which just uses a dozen eggs and a box of Jiffy cornbread mix. This one has been around for a long time, and the added handfeeding formula and vitamins are optional:

http://www.finchaviary.com/Maintenance/ ... ecipes.htm

I also would offer seed at all times. Hulling seed is a natural activity for birds and helps to keep them occupied. My birds love homemade egg food, eggs are one of the best sources of protein for our birds, and they need protein for growth and feather development.

[cindy]

try chitting or sprouting seeds too...my birds love it!

[Emberrhine]

Thanks for your suggestions, everyone!

I try to feed as healthy and as varied a diet as possible, but I do worry sometimes that I might be offering too much variety. I'll take a look at the advice given here and try to tweak a few things...

Oh, and, just to clarify, my shaft-tails always have their seed mix available. In the morning, their food plate contains half moist mix, half seed mix (not blended together), and in the evening it's just seed mix and dry egg food.

Looking forward to trying some of these new recipes,

-Ember