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Post by greyeagle1 on Oct 28, 2011 11:21:08 GMT 10
Just wondering if it is nutritionally sound to feed my cockatiels a wild finch bird seed mix I get at a local feed store? They seem to pick out only a few seeds to eat in the cockatiel mix from the pet shop and I end up throwing out a lot of the remainder.
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Post by avinet on Oct 28, 2011 12:35:42 GMT 10
It depends - without knowing which seeds are in the mix I can't say. I've never seen a wild finch mix in these parts, only general wild bird mixes which are usually terrible - the ones that Woolworths sells for instance.
If you can take a close up photo of the mix for us to look at then we might be able to make a comment.
Since you say it is a wild finch mix I assume it doesn't contain any sunflower - finches don't eat sunflower. However as a comment on wild bird mixes, always avoid feeding any mix that had black sunflower in it - only give grey-striped sunflower to pet and aviary birds. Black sunflower is much higher in fat and wild birds can work of the fat with all the flying they do, captive birds don't get enough exercise to burn off the fat and so can get obese as a result of eating black sunflower.
Whichever seed you feed, be sure to give plenty of fresh veggies as well.
cheers,
Mike
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Post by greyeagle1 on Oct 29, 2011 11:45:03 GMT 10
The wild finch mix contains black thistle seed, white millet seed and red millet seed. The cockatiel seed mix I obtain at the pet store contains the white millet seed (they love this), safflower seed and pelleted rainbow bits that I think are fruit-scented. However, it contains no sunflower seeds. It's the safflower they don't touch. Do you know what the nutritional value of the seeds in the finch mix would be?
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Post by avinet on Oct 29, 2011 14:02:34 GMT 10
OK - I see that you are from the USA - some of the seed mixes I've seen in US shops have been quite different form our normal mixes, and that explains a wild finch mix which we don't see here. The mix I use for cockatiels and other small parrots is shown in the photo below - although my pet cockatiels get pellets rather than seed as a basis of their diet. I do use it for my retirement aviary of elderly and handicapped birds, which included quite a few cockatiels. The mix contains the following seeds: Canary, Panicum, White French Millet, Hulled Oats, Japanese Millet, Safflower, and Grey Striped Sunflower. The proportions of the mix do vary a bit depending on what is available, currently it doesn't have as much canary as I would like and the Sunflower is not the greatest quality either, but as new crops are harvested that will change. My pet cockatiels get a small amount of this as a "going to bed" treat in the evenings when I put them away in their cage. They also mostly eat the small seeds and leave the larger seed. Your wild finch mix would be OK I guess - although I don't know anything about black thistle seed, we don't have that available here. Another possibility would be a budgie mix, at least in Australia budgie mixes don't normally contain safflower or sunflower, and are mainly canary, millet and pannicum. I am a big fan of canary seed if feeding a seed mix, so perhaps your wild finch mix with some added canary seed might give a good balance seed mix, although I am a bigger fan of pellet based diets  cheers, Mike  |
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Post by greyeagle1 on Oct 30, 2011 3:00:00 GMT 10
Thank you for the pic of the seed mix you use for your cockatiels! I forgot to mention that there are 2 types of wild finch mix that I buy. The one I didn't mention in the last post has: nyjer seed, sunflower meats, cannary grass seed, flax seed and the white and red millet seeds. I may as well try to grow a millet plant indoors as they seem to really favor the white millet seed...
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