Best finch seed mix?

[fraudster]

Hi all, just wanted to start a new thread on your opinion about which is the best finch seed mix. Since quality can change from year to year, I just want to find out what you guys currently use for your finches, so I can get some in a few days since I'm running low and don't want to feed my birds low quality stuff. Cheers!

[Tiaris]

Depends which species you mostly have.
Mostly Gouldians & PFs - extra white millet & plain canary.
Mostly small waxbills - extra red pannicum.

[gomer]

My all round general mix for a wide variety of birds has been about 33% red panicum 33% plain canany 25% french millet 10% jap millet. Other seeds then get added to less common finches depending where its going. greens and grains somtimes rye or linseed extra canary again.

[fraudster]

Do you just buy your own and mix or do you buy a specific brand?

[gomer]

Always buy Australian grown bags of individual seed. As imported seed has been heat treated and will not chit another thing to consider chitting your own seed.If your not in a position to buy 20 kg bags of individual seed some stores the bigger good ones will make seed to your recipe.I have only found one store that is in Geelong that has a decent mix.

Someone may know of a decent mix in Melbourne they are happy with if you dont want to mix your own.

[matcho]

Fraudster,

I run Goulds, Stars and Painteds. I am a lazy bugger and don't have that many to warrant me buying separate types of seeds and mixing my own. Having said that I have tried many seed mixes from various suppliers and have settled on Avi Grain "Blue". $36 for a twenty kilo bag. Minimal wastage, sprouts great, not topped up with "filler" seeds. The blue has no "rape" seed in it compared to the Avi Grain "red" which was an absolute waste, none of my birds touched it. Works for me. I go through the 20kg bag every eight weeks or so and am quite happy with the results. I also make sure they get greens and green seed along with the dry and sprouted.

Good luck

Ken.

[mickenglish]

I have a large jar of seed which came from Coles some time ago. I think it was called Small Bird Mix. I was going to put a feeder in the garden but due to a high daily roll-up of Magpies and Currawongs, I didn't go ahead. I have successfully planted some of it so I guess it hasn't been damaged by the packaging process. Is there any reason I should not use it to feed a few Zebras and Gouldians when they arrive?

I stopped feeding the magpies and Currawongs about a year ago, they were becoming much too dependent and practically lived on my front deck with the expected messy results.



Regards
Mick

Maggies.jpeg

[starman]

Hi Mick,
You could use the small bird mix along with a good quality finch mix. This way the birds can decide the suitability of the small bird mix while not being deprived of the small pannicums and other finch favourites. The small bird mixes sometimes contain too many of the larger/harder seeds (depending on brand).

[vicnorthone]

Hey Gomer

when you refer to using 10% Jap Millet, are you meaning shirohie millet or actually Japanese millet?

Also please note........ no one seems to prefer to using yellow panorama which fills a lot of commercially available bird mixes.

lemnosian