Sunflower seeds!

[perrysbirds]

Who feeds sunflower seeds to the fiches?
Im thinking of buying some and crushing them and mixing them with my finch seed?
Any thoughts on Sunflower seeds?

[FinchDegg]

i've read somewhere that they are meant to be very good for the birds, some sort of vitamin in them, give them a whirl as only your birds will have the final say

[L in Ontario]

Everything in moderation. I've heard sunflower seeds are very high in fat content... at least for my parrots.

[CandoAviary]

My basic breeding finch mix I feed is a mix of ABBA finch and ABBA canary and ABBA song food /treat. These last 2 contain sunflower chips. I think the sunflowers are very beneficial in the diet. Sometimes I have to break the larger pieces into smaller as they don't like large chunks of the seed.

[cindy]

I try not to feed sunflower seed to hookbills since they can forget about other foods and snack out on those. If your birds are housed outside a little sunflower seed a couple of times a week to help build up a little fat layer for warmth may be ok.

But like Liz said, "everything in moderation". Perhaps you can start out once a week to see how they take to it, then go to twice a week. If you notice the birds eating to much and getting a little heavy, lazy cut back to once a week as a treat. I would not offer it everyday.

[CandoAviary]

Yes, my hookbills are a little different...they will eat these along with their cashews first and only if they could but the finches always eat the millets first...sunflower nut chips last. So sunfloers aren't as enticing to finches as they are to hookbills. PS It is said they have a narcotic influence in hookbills thus the common term sunflower junkies In the pet shops I have seen birds...especially cockatiels eat only sunflower seeds.


If you have canary finches, european gold finches, or green singing finches sunflower nuts are usually always in there diets. Many finches that require high protein diets really benefit form the increased protein of the sunflower nut. (my parrot finches are thriving with them)
If you keep your birds in a cage then almost any high protein food, sunflower chips, eggfoods, etc will tend to make them fat.... I prefer great diets and lots of excercise...but yes caution to fattening caged birds.

[cindy]

It is like the potato chip thing, can't eat just one!!!!!!!

Moderation and balance...

Just a quick question, are you feeding any pelleted diet? Most pelleted diets are very balanced. I supplement it in the dried eggfood. I would just watch their weight and make sure they don't get "lazy" and heavy. Most finches are very energetic and can burn it off with exercise, then there are some that will just eat and eat.