FINCHforum

I was wondering since I have found where I can get mealworms , will gouldians , societies and zebra finches and canaries even try to eat them as they will be moving around in the food cup , maybe they might get frightened by it?
Are there any risks I should consider when offering them live food ?
I am wondering because the breeder told me that the gouldians and others wont even try them , is there an alternative way like chopping them up and putting them in some kind of 'food mix' so that they at least taste them , I've also learned that mealworms are good protein food and because they are a good protein food they are also good when breeding ..

Just to refresh the post , I need to know if these finches can eat mealworms

Hi, all my birds eat dried meal worms. The Gouldians in particular love them. The dried meal worm are still high in protein and in my opinion a much better alternative than live meal worm.

While it is perfectly safe for them to eat, it is not necessary for any of the species you listed to eat mealworms. A good egg food is more than sufficient for their protein needs during breeding. You can try offer them to your birds as a treat or in addition to their normal food and they may or may not eat them, so don't stress if they don't.

I have gouldian's in with my waxbills, with mealworms on offer constantly during breeding season and I only have one gouldian hen that occasionally eats a worm. The rest of the gouldians prefer egg food. My canaries would eat them with great glee but then they are just little piggies

Note that in an ideal world, we wouldn't need to feed waxbills or other insectivorous finches mealworms or other live food either. These birds are hunters in the wild, constantly looking for the next bug and it's more the mental drive to hunt than the protein available in the live food, which keeps them from easily accepting egg food. It's been proven many times that a good egg food is enough for waxbill chicks to be reared on (often done by fostering under society's). The big challenge is to first get the waxbills onto egg food and this can only be done through a good couple of generations of captive breeding.

Rox I knew that these finches have no need for worms , I just wanna make their diet more varied and asking if there are any risks , the breeder gave me a little box of mealworms to see if they will eat them , I have my camera rolling on gouldians and societies , but the first one not to be afraid by the worms were zebra finches , she even grabbed one worm but didn't eat it , she just picked it up and it fell down maybe by accident , for some reason canaries are looking afraid of worms , I dont know why , usually when I put something in their cage they are like little pigs like you said ^_^ .
When I put the worms in gouldians cage , they kind of stood on a perch over the worms and looked at them like "what the heck is this " and started clicking her beak like trying to say "yumm" xD
Anyways thanks for responses much appreciated.
@LiverpoolLayers I would agree with you , they wouldn't be scared by something that isn't moving but I do not have a way to dry the worms if you mean dried worms with that machine (English is not native language sorry I am not sure of the name of the machine xD)

My green singers loved mealworms too. However they were picky. They didn't like live worms just dried ones. So I bought (flukes) mealworms in the reptile section. - tam