FINCHforum

Has anyone tried freeze dried insects for thier Birds?? I found a website ( Exotic Nutrition)that sells mealworms, crickets, grass hoppers, etc. I go through a lot of live meal worms for my waxbills & they are a mess & this freeze dried thing sounds pretty good?

A lot of people feed the freeze dried aquatic foods like bloodworms, krill, daphnia, etc. also. Mnay times this is less expensive too.

I believe the mealworms that come in cans - are not "dry" at all. They are juicy just like the live ones (at least the cans from Zoomed or Xoterra SP? are. They are much like the live ones in that the finches can bite the head off and squeeze out the insides.

My goldbreasts liked them. And they also like the dried bloodworms,

I saw where they had those in the can also (cooked ones?)... Glad to hear they like those also... I guess I will give them a shot, I'm already looking for a bulk supplier for the dried blood worms also.

Thanks

I bought a can'o'worms (the dead juicy ones) only once and my birds didn't touch them. I ended up throwing the stuff away because I couldn't stand how it smelled...

The "freeze dried" bloodworms are dried out. You get them in little round plastic jars in the fish department of a pet store. I sprinkle some over the food sometimes, but I think the only birds who are eating them in my aviary are the button quail. They eat anything that looks (and tastes?) only vaguely like an insect. My finches still only want their fresh mealworms. (Frozen overnight so they are dead but still fresh. "Dead" only because I don't want to end up with a colony in the aviary like I did last summer.... )

My birds will only eat live mealworms or the insect mix from Cede. Any freeze dried or canned stuff is ignored.

I have been giving my Society fosters live mealworms (I cut them in 1/2 so they don't crawl away and live for a while). I was running very low on them so I gave them the canned "juicy" mealworms along with a few of the live ones to get them used to the canned ones in case I did run out of live worms before being able to procure more. Well the Socs wouldn't touch the canned ones but polished off the live ones as usual.

Maybe if I'd started them on the canned ones they might have taken to them but not once they had started with the live ones - they would not switch.

I also tried the can o worms, on my shaftails.....no go, they wouldn't eat even a one.