Are my birds fat?

[franceska]

How do you all know if your birds are at the right weight or not?

I have a mixed aviary (goulds, canarys, stars, owls, parrot finches and buttonquails) and different types of food is therefore available to all birds; finch seed mix, canary seed mix, dried insects, egg food (since there are babies in nests), spray millet and sometimes fruit/vegetables.

I am wondering about my owl finches, who are not spending a lot of energy (not nesting, not flying arond as much as the other birds) but mostly just sitting together on a perch preening eachother or - eating.

I saw a pair of owls in the petstore yesterday and it just struck me that they just seemed much more "elongated" than mine... they are just more round. Otherwise there is no sign of bad health or so.

[dfcauley]

I really do think that the size of owls varies. I saw some owls at Emory hospital aviary a few weeks ago and was shocked at how "chunky" they were and they had a really huge place to fly around in. Mine are really small and they have loads of options to eat from. I think it just depends on the owls......

[Matt]

Blow around the vent so you can see the skin. A normal bird should have normal pinkish flesh, a fat bird will be yellowish.

[sean]

i always seem to wind up in trouble whenever my birds ask me if they look fat.

[williep]

Pet store birds are not always the best indication of a healthy "correct" weight bird. They might also be younger birds that aren't a "target" weight yet. If you are really concerned you can always weigh them if you have a fairly accurate kitchen scale. I weigh my breeding cage birds every couple of months (especially my goulds who tend to pack on a few too many ounces every now and again).

[Geordie]

My Javas got a bit fat last year, then I realized I was feeding them winter seed during the summer...changed that and no problem.

[Sally]

If you are really concerned you can always weigh them if you have a fairly accurate kitchen scale. I weigh my breeding cage birds every couple of months (especially my goulds who tend to pack on a few too many ounces every now and again).

That's a good idea, williep. I have one of those small scales for weighing food, I think it is pretty accurate. Wouldn't want to catch up all my birds to do this, but when I suspect one of them is hitting the snack bar a little too often, I could check on it this way.

[williep]

Maybe this might be stating the obvious, but just ensure you put your birds in a small box to weigh them and just subtract the box weight, I use an old light bulb box for this purpose.

For some reason I could never get mine to sit still long enough on the scale before I started using boxes after the 5 birds flew away

[mickp]

if I tried to weigh my birds there would have to be one that could talk who would proceed to tell me to hop on the scales, that would be a scary thought