Gold Breasted Waxbills not eating Abba Exotic Finch seed

[suefourmet]

I've been trying to find the best seeds for these little guys. They must be eating some of the mix because they are still flying around, but it sure looks like they are wasting most of the seed (lots of millet?) I'd be glad to start mixing my own but I'm not sure where to start. Is there any particular seed that seems to be on the GBW favorites list? I have a feeling it is a size issue (they want smaller seeds?) I figure if I keep the Exotic mix in the cage and put in a separate dish of one kind of seed at a time, I might be able to figure this out.
BTW - these little guys won't touch any greens I've tried, don't like fruit, and won't eat egg food. I've got a package of dried bugs - should I try that?

Thanks.

Sue

[Chichireeo]

Are you offering pellets? In case they're not eating a balanced diet, if they eat the pellets they'll get some of those nutrients.

[trentfysty]

We feed our Gold Breasted Waxbills Excello's Finch Mix which contains the following seeds:

Golden German Millet, White Millet, Canary Grass Seed, Red Siberian Millet, Rapeseed, Flaxseed, Steel Cut Oats, Niger seed

We use their fortified mix which also has pellets and the GB seem to like it a lot. The finch mix seeds are very small and that seems to help. They also like soaked seed that has just started to chit. We have had no success with egg food, live food, or dried insects. Hope this helps.

[CandoAviary]

I feed ABBA 1900 finch as the base diet to my flocks. I offer ABBA 92A with seed and shreded boiled egg. I usually mix the following... ABBA 3700 canary with no rape, ABBA 1800 Canary and finch treat (lots of small seed), ABBA 3800 which is super small seed designed for siskins but the goldbreast eat it also,
I feed this as a different mix. ABBA nmineral, morning bird trace mineral dust, hatch eggshell
I also feed my own custom mix to them which is a mix of small millets, siberian red, german, japanese, and then smom flax.
As far as fruits I place apple slices to draw fruit flies(my bird are outdoors) but they will nibble a bit of the apples. The will eat green leafy plants, spinach (small amounts not too often), I grow mixed lettuce collections... oakleaf, ruby red,etc., The also will nibble the greens of carrot tops but overall I don't find them to be big veggie and fruit eaters. They will eat green millet heads full of milk if you grow millet. Chitted (sprouted just a little) seed is great also.
They love bugs... termites being their most favorite, but they eat fruit flies, wingless and normal, mealworms and some ants.
I had one time put some sugar and honey on the corner of the aviary to draw the sweet sugar ants... It did but it also drew many anoles which dine on them instead of the finches getting them.
They aren't crazy about dead bugs or fish foods, other breeders have had success with these however. Maybe mine are just spoiled and hold out for the real thing
This diet seem to work well for them... they breed well and so far I have only ever lost 1 adult which was most likely was old age. I have had many of my breeders for 5 years now and they still look great.
You can click on the foods and see the ingredients and picture from this site
http://www.abbaseed.com/Seed_Products/s ... ducts.html

[suefourmet]

Thanks for the replies, you guys. I have copied the posts that listed ingredients and will start from there. (I have tried pellets and they are not having any!) I tried really hard to find someone local who is doing some breeding, but haven't had any luck. These guys are wild caught and I'm hoping to be able to breed them and contribute to the captive-bred population, once I get the hang of working with them. Candace, I'm going to try the small seeds you mentioned and also hadn't thought of giving them soaked seed, so I'll try that, also.

Thanks again.

Sue