Insects

[Chihuahua]

I e. Even reading a lot about various social bills and noticed that insects are frequently part of the diet of many species. How is this done, ie would you feed live or dried or?? Just one type or several kinds? What kinds of insects would you feed? Etc etc any insight is appreciated! I did not realize until recently that so many birds aside from parrots were kept so I have been quite fascinated.

[w.l.]

Social bills or softbills?

Softbills are very much a catch-all category, covering insectivores, fruit-eaters, nectar-eaters and those feeding on a mix of these.

I have found that birds feeding on a mix of fruit, insects and possibly nectar are much easier to keep healthy than pure insectivores or birds living predominantly on nectar.
The pure insectivores tend to need diverse livefood and pine away on less varied diet while the nectar-eaters need very small insects I can't easily get.

So now I keep bulbuls and various white-eyes which I feed live buffalo worms and ant puppae in addition to pellets, eggfood, fruit and sugary-water.

Larger birds also take mealworms and crickets.
A mix of wild insects collected with a net hitting the grass is also great and could be essential for insectivores and for smaller softbills feeding their young,

I bought dried insectivore mix once, and none of my birds wanted any of it.
I can't blame them, really - think how you'd like if you were offered a steak totally dried out and hard.

[lovezebs]

Chihuahua

I offer live meal worms to those species that will eat them (like Waxbills, Parrot Finches, Javas, Diamond Firetails, etc.)

I have however seen other species eat them as well, such as Societies, Gouldians, the occasional Zebra...

I have also offered flightless fruit flies to the Waxbills, and once they figure out that these come out of the holes in the container, they sit and wait patiently then pounce on their pray.

Freeze dried mealworms can be bought in bags at Walmart in the wild bird aisle (which are a lot cheaper than going through a Pet Store). I crush these into a powder, then mix them into my homemade egg food. You can do the same with freeze dried bloodworms (bought at the fish aisle).

Hope this is helpful.

[Chihuahua]

Thanks for the info! Definitely meant soft bills... I'm on mobile

[w.l.]

Thinking of getting any softbills?
Unfortunately, selection tends to be smaller and prices higher than of finches.
But if you can find and afford them, Pekin robins and white-eyes are both charming and fairly easy to keep. Starlings/mynahs are also hardy softbills but need more space. All these thrive on a mixed diet, meaning you don't need a very varied selection of live insects for them.

[Chihuahua]

Not any time soon, I just like to learn if I ever build an aviary I may get some