Termites / A necessity for some? Or should we find an Alternative

[casehulsebosch]

Quote Sam:I know my friend recently fledged some blue-caps too, which is close to miraculous IMHO.

I visited a bird breeder in Perth a few years ago now who put 35 blue cap young on the perch without termites. When I revisited the following year he had gone out of birds due to his age/health.

cheers, Case

[Lukec]

Thanks for the replies, my thoughts have been confirmed, basically we need some breeders committed to using termites to keep birds like the pytilias going.

There is some comments here and a lot of discussion a while back about frozen termites. How viable are they for Pytilias and BC's?

[Craig52]

I bought a termite tumbler to do this, the idea was to freeze 90% of them and keep the other 10% alive. I was told to feed out the dead frozen one's and place a teaspoon of live ones in with them just so they could see movement.After two weeks of doing this and running out of live ones my birds refused to take any of the dead ones so imo the whole exercise was a waste of time and more so energy as it's hard work digging up these mounds and tumbling by hand. I know Tiaris has developed the electric tumbler but i'm past doing all that stuff now and my birds breed quite well on what they get now,just bushfly maggots and pupae infact they wont even eat the mealworms that are in the floor substrate and hang around the water dishes for moisture,they originated from my birds just chucking them on the floor i suppose. Craig

[Tiaris]

I had the opposite experience. I went straight from live termites to frozen ones with at the time Bluecaps, YW Pytilias & Melbas breeding & they didn't skip a beat. Morning feed was live termites & arvo feed was frozen ones & the pairs with young scoffed into them exactly the same as that morning & I didn't notice any lost young. At the time my dad was still breeding a few birds too & I put him onto frozen termites as he was losing mobility & I could easily supply his frozen ones & he reared full clutches of these Africans on them too. I still use frozen ones whenever I go on an extended holiday with complete success.

[Cordonfan1]

Same here , cordons etc still smash the frozen ones .
Makes me feel a bit safer with the boss too as they're in a sealed tub in the fridge from the time I collect then straight into freezer.

[wagga]

Craig, just a thought, I wonder if the species of termite could be a major contributor to the refusal of frozen termites by your birds.

[Craig52]

No Al, they relished the live ones and they were from the same source that i used to get from 20 odd years ago. I did notice that the body moisture of these frozen ones had dehydrated significantly and virtually just left a shell.
By the way, i still have this tumbler if anyone is interested in buying it. Craig

[Lukec]

How much Craig?

I might plan on frozen termites.

[Craig52]

How much Craig?

I might plan on frozen termites.

pm me Luke but won't be up your way till October

[Fireback]

When I was lucky enough to live in the dry tropics N/W of Townsville, surrounded by a cattle property, it was a matter of which termite nest to pick, as you could see hundreds of the grass eating termite species mounds around about two to 3 feet tall looking like volcanoes. I would drive and park right next to the nests and fill up plastic bins within a matter of minutes. There was no need to dig them out as you could just push on them and they would break off cleanly from the base and they would be loaded with termites. Summer time around the wet season was the best time as the winged alates would be ready to fly from the nests and my finches would go beserk over them and breed like mice. Large numbers of young melbas, cordons, white eared masks, black throats, auroras, aberdeens etc were produced in conjunction with large quantity's of guinea grass seed heads and all types of native grass seeds fed daily. I would often watch the wild white rumped black throats and double bars and rainbow bee eaters etc during the wet season picking off the flying alates as they left the termite mounds. I believe if you're lucky enough to have access to termites you could not feed your birds a better live food and you won't struggle to breed birds like blue caps, or any of the pytilias or waxbills etc.