FINCHforum

Is it just mine, or are they all incredibly picky/messy eaters??

I'm willing to bet that over half of their food ends up on their cage floor, or the carpet, or the wall....
They are such tiny little birds to make such an incredible mess.

Love them.. really I do - but even my large society bachelor cage doesn't generate that much waste...

Having all my birds in smaller cages for the last few weeks during a house move, I must say that I agree with your conclusion.

I can give 12 Gouldians the same huge, deep food dish as 3 parrot finches and without fail the PF have theirs all over the place and near empty by day two. I've given up trying to contain the mess. They must just pick their seed up off the floor now and get it that way. They waste so much.
My thoughts are along the lines of - "You made your bed, now sleep in it".

monotwine wrote:They waste so much.
My thoughts are along the lines of - "You made your bed, now sleep in it".

HAH! That's about where my head is too. They're stunning active little critters, but OMG..
So I"m pulling the grate off the bottom - which I used since it seemed like a good sanitary idea. But since that's where all their darn food is...!
I can see this is a cage I"m going to have clean even more regularly than the others... Sigh..

I'm going to see if I can find the seed cup with the "Catcher" too.. that sounds wonderful!

I put the food on a paper plate and the finches stopped spreading it all over the cage. They still make some mess, but not as bad. I think they have an instinct to eat off the ground, so the paper plate helps. I put paper towels over the grate to help keep the cage cleaning.

I've started using rubber non-slip mats on the bottom of my cages, over the grates....They wash real easily and dry quickly....It makes a great floor for them to eat off of.....I also use the Tidy Seed feeder on the outside of the cage, it helps when they are shovelling the seed with their beaks....They are great, active little birds!...Never a dull moment in a RH Parrot cage!

I love them!

Paper plates and rubber mats....

Off to Walmart!!
Thanks for the advice!

I put all my feeders on top of small trays with mesh over the top.
When they flick food around out of the feed dish it drops through into the tray below,easy to clean