What Healthy Food to buy?

[richierick]

Hey everyone.

I have a question about what food I should get my zebra finches.
I am not a 100% sure which food to buy at petvalu or petsmart?
I really do not care how expensive it is I just want to know your
opinion on which is the healthiest food to buy. If you know what
is healthy for my birds please share it with me.

[wellingtoncdm]

Some people swear by pellets or complete feed others seed or some a combo of both. Fresh is always best. Many soak/sprout seed. Finch mix varieties can be great as long as the birds don't just eat their favorite and waste the rest. Eggfood or boiled egg in addition to veggies are excellent for growing, molting or breeding birds.

[cindy]

I agree with Charlie...I buy pellets but also give brown top and Japanese millet and eggfoods and veggies.

A simple food to try at one of the chain stores is a small tub of Lafebers finch pelets. it can be served to the side of seed or put into eggfood, it is a great food, pretty balanced to feed to young that are weaning and parents that are feeding. Millets are fine and birds love it. They do also make powdered dry eggfood which is handy at times left down and can also be mixed in eggfoods. Dried herbs (I think KayTee has one which is carried by PetSmart). Mine like the Roudybush Nibbles (smallest size not the rods). I will be trying the Mazuri Nibbles also, but less expensive. Some of mine like the Zupreem fruit blend pellets for finches/canaries.

Offer romaine, shaved broccoli tops, shredded carrots, grated boiled egg with shell...you have to try new things to see what they like best. Sprouting is another option.

[dcompt]

Just a note. If they have been eating seed and you decide you would like to feed just pellets, don't do it abruptly. It can take time to wean them off seed and get them to eat pellets. I feed my finches seed with the Zupreem pellets in a treat dish to eat occasionally if they choose. All of them eat them some, but it's not what they choose for their staple food.

I would think most of the seed mixes at Petsmart would be ok, and if they have a lot of turnover, it should be fresh enough. I have also ordered the house blend seed from Dr. Fosters and Smith, though I bought the parakeet blend to give my societies some larger seeds, and mixed it with a regular finch blend. You can also get nice bulk millet sprays there.

I'm not very experienced for sure, but I chose not to feed an all pellet diet. I know it's healthy, but birds evolved to eat and thrive on seed, so supplemented with fresh greens and veggies and eggfood when needed, it seems it should be adequate. Also, it makes them work a little for their food, hulling the seeds, which makes a mess, but is a natural activity for them. There is little enough of that for caged birds, so I like for them to at least have interesting food. I know it's anthropomorphising, but it seems to me that an all pellet diet would be like me trying on live on very nutritious crackers. It could be done if the crackers were nutritionally balanced, but what a bore. Anyway, that's my unsolicited philosophy of bird food.

[richierick]

Those are great advice wellingtoncdm, cindy and dcompt.
You guy said that they would like fresh veggies. What veggies
are safe for zebra's to eat?

[dcompt]

I don't have zebras, but my societies love lettuce, especially romaine, grated carrots, green peas (cooked and popped out of the hull for them - a pain to do). Sometimes they will eat the tiny florets cut off broccoli, but not consistently.

Their favorite treat, other than lettuce is corn. I cook the small half-ears (frozen). Then I slice it lenthwise so it has a flat base. I cut off the kernals (not too close) for me, and let then have the cobs with the bits of corn left behind. They descend on it like locusts and pick it clean like little flying piranhas.