FINCHforum

JerseyGuy wrote: I have tried on numerous occasions to offer fruits and vegetables to my 2 Male Gouldians. They just refuse. They are 2 stubborn guys.

This morning I offered apples, cucumber and broccoli and they still
will not eat it. In all honesty, I don't know what else I can do to get these finches to eat this food. I'm going to have to place another call to the Bird Store I purchased them from and talk to the owner.

Try offering the same thing over and over and over again. If you keep giving them "new" when they haven't acclimated to anything yet they might just keep rejecting.

I give my guys the Spring Kale mix from Costco. The closest I have found out and about is a broccoli cole slaw mix. It took several weeks but now they pig out on it.

I can add one thing to that and they will try it. However recently I tried a completely different mix - which has several things in it they will normally eat - and they are rejecting it. Too much "new" all at the same time, apparently.

The question for me is "How" to offer these new foods. On a plate? in a bowl? I don't have a lot of floor space in their flight cage, and I don't want them to poop on their food. I did offer them some parsley thru the cage bars, they pecked at it, but didn't eat it. It can become very expensive buying salad greens/Spring mix on a weekly basis only to throw it all out in the trash because the Gouldians aren't eating it.

JerseyGuy

I put it on a saucer on the bottom of the cage. Just don't put it directly under a perch and it will be fine. They WILL poop on it a little bit from time to time anyway, but I remove the plate and dump anything that is left by the end of the day. Keeping in mind the "end of the day" around here is about 4:30 PM - that's when it starts getting dark around here.

If you are squeamish about using people-plates, just get a cheap plastic saucer from the dollar store or a saucer-size plate from a thrift store will work.

The size of the plate is actually more a function of the number of birds. I only have 2 - so a saucer is plenty.

It will get pooped on a little bit but you won't be leaving it in there long enough to accumulate anything significant. If a container is big enough for a bird to perch on and turn around, there WILL be poop.

I know, to our senses any poop at all seems like too much, but there just isn't anyway to keep birds from pooping where ever they happen to be at the moment. As long as its not under a perch, it'll be fine.

I have also used saucer-size paper plates (the ones that are waxed to keep them from getting soggy) but have found these only work for pretty "dry" types of salad mixes, like the Costco Spring Kale mix or a Broccoli Cole Slaw mix. These have long shreds of broccoli stems in them and only small leaf-pieces.

Other salad mixes that consist mostly of actual leaves don't work so well on paper plates. Even with the wax coating, the leaves get all limp and the plate gets damp.