Aussie Finch Forum

I have finch soft food, egg and biscuit mix and wheat germ. My Gouldians are still moulting and the females are starting to make nests. Can I feed a mixture of the dry foods, and if so how much of each?
in Adelaide

Just by the way, try egg shells because the gouldians love that. Here is a subforum explaining how to cook them. viewtopic.php?f=42&t=23032

I find the Gouldians don't really like the finch soft food, so if I mix it with egg and biscuit they won't eat that either.

I generally mix the egg and biscuit in with the green food, and then serve soft food with the livefood.

What is in that salad? Also, how many birds are in the aviary you are feeding that to so I can get a general idea of how much veg to feed in mine.

I try to grow everything I give them, so the mix varies depending on what's ready. Ideally it would be made up of kale, endive, silverbeet, carrot, and broccoli.

Those two will feed about 60 finches.

Gouldians will learn to eat different foods if you have other birds that eat the foods. Mine use to get a home made egg biscuit mix that I made from a boiled egg and a cup of cornflakes. Hard boil an egg and remove the shell. Put the egg in a bowl and mush it up with a fork. Get 1/2 to 1 cup of cornflakes and put them in a paper or plastic bag and crush them into little bits with a rolling pin. Mix the cornflakes and boiled egg together and feed to the birds.

Give them green feed every day.

Make sure they have clean water, mineral grit and cuttlebone at all times.

Give them a vitamin supplement each day. Use a dry powdered supplement and check the expiry date on it.

My Gouldans take minimal greens or supplements.
They are provided with green seeds and sprouted seed, to the later I add a vitamen powder and some dry biscuit mix (mostly to reduce the moisture so it doesn't turn to ice when I freeze it).

On a separate matter, I stop my Gouldians from nesting at this time of year. Chicks that hatch now will not attain there full colour till Xmas 2020 and as you mentioned many birds are starting to moult now and will not finish till early Dec. I try to avoid them moulting and breeding at the same time.

Cheers
Brett

BrettB wrote: ↑06 Sep 2019, 16:00 On a separate matter, I stop my Gouldians from nesting at this time of year. Chicks that hatch now will not attain there full colour till Xmas 2020 and as you mentioned many birds are starting to moult now and will not finish till early Dec. I try to avoid them moulting and breeding at the same time.

Incidentally, I've found the late-season young Gouldians (that take 18 months to colour up) to be the superior breeders in their second year. Must be all that pent-up frustration at not being allowed to mate for two years...

Mine breed when they want to and dont when they dont. Some of the boys are singing, but most looking a bit scruffy, and the girls are all indiferent right now. Lots of seeding grasses from now on to have them at their best through the moult. Egg shells good idea at this time too. Have occasionally had them take egg and biscuit mix when other birds are. That salad looks great Shane.
LML

I give them broccoli, spinach, beetroot leaves, dandelions, thistles, and any other green food I can find as well as apples. The females are going through a very heavy moult and they look terrible. They also have cuttlefish and shellgrit avail all the time. Last breeding season was a total failure, with lots of eggs, a few young, but all died. I have tried chitting seed, buy no matter what process I use, its never successful. I'm at a loss as what to try next.