Roy Howes
A good staple diet for budgerigars is canary seed and mixed millets. It pays to get a good quality seed, and it is also important to try and keep to the same supplier if possible.
There are various different types of panicum millet that budgerigars enjoy. There are also other foods that can be given, such as groats, either given dry or soaked in cold water. If given soaked it should be changed each day as it can go sour.
Other well-known seeds that they enjoy are: rape, hemp, maw, niger, sunflower, linseed, wheat, barley, oats and some like different green food such as grounsel,common shepherds purse, perpetual spinich and chickory. This should be washed before giving it, to make sure it is clean and free of any wild bird droppings. Many fanciers give their birds carrot, either whole, pushed between the bars of the cage or flight, or grated and added to softfood. Do not give to the birds during the show season as they end up with orange fronts.
There are some minerals that budgerigars need, such as iron, iodine, carbon, potassium, chlorine and many others and also a good such as oyster shell grit and limestone. Cuttlefish bone is a good source of calcium which budgerigars enjoy, but do keep it clean.
There are various tonics and vitamin supplements that you can add to the drinking water. Find one that suits your budgerigar's needs and keep to it.
There are also many kinds of soft foods on the market to feed to the breeding pairs during the breeding season. Again, find one that the birds in your aviary like, supplement it with brown bread and milk. Some breeders make their own soft food with hard-boiled egg, breadcrumbs, carrot etc., and add vitamins with it instead of water.
To encourage babies to feed themselves, put a piece of millet spray through the hole of the nestbox. The babies see the adult eating it and copy. Keep giving them millet sprays on the bottom of the breeding cage when they come out of the nest box.
Don't take all the seed husk out of the bottom of the breeding cages as the babies do like to grub about in the husks and seed, and they also like to snuggle down in it to keep warm on a chilly night. Just remove the dirt piles to keep the cage relatively clean.
Editor's Note: This article is part of a booklet Welcome to Caring For and Breeding Clearwing Budgerigars used as a welcome to new members of the CBBA and is reprinted by kind permission of that Association.
Copyright © 1997, The Clearwing Budgerigar Breeders Association.
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