Grass seeds

[fincher]

hehehheh me mum complains about the mealies and maggots in the fridge. but thenshe finnaly gets over it.
thansk chris

[Page0044]

I think the cook will get over the grass seeds but i don't think i will be able to hid the maggots

[GregH]

There's not much point drying down green grass seed for nutritional benefit as the amino acids and vitamins that you're after have a very short "shelf-life". Freezing is the way to go but even then no more than a couple of months. According to my wife (who is in charge of grain quality and nutrition here at the Internatioanl Rice Research Institute) carotinoids (like vitamin A) are not stored by grains because they oxidise and can even form toxic compounds when they do so I wouldn't use dried green seed as a long-term solution. She also says that she hates my birds and doesn't like the wild-life (insects and spiders) that crawl out of my bag of green grass heads and inhabit the the car for a few days after I go off to collecting it!

If anyone doubts the benefits of feeding green seed go to the library and get hold of a copy of Allen,L.R.;Hume, I.D. (1997) The importance of green seed in the nitrogen nutrition of the Zebra Finch Taeniopygia guttata. Austral Ecology 4:412-418. In this article they reported that fresh green as opposed to dried mature seeds was more similar to whole egg than the dry seed because of the amount and types of proteins available. Doug Hill & Marcus Pollard's article http://www.finchsociety.org/fsa/grass/grass.htm from the South Australian Finch Society is my bible for this topic. Sprouted seeds are an alternative but they're not quite as good.

[Page0044]

Thanks for the info Greg, makes sence

[melby]

Where does everybody get their grass seeds from. I've raided our neighbours yards (asked them first) and a local little park but I'm so paranoid about poisons. I'm thinking of planting them deliberately soon as I have run out of spots to get them.

[Mickp]

I grow my own. some in the aviary that are eaten on a first find best fed basis. others in tubs in 'she who must be obeyed's shadehouse

[Matt]

I grow millets, panic and johnson grass but I still wind up driving around to collect more. If I am at all concerned about the area being sprayed with poison, I will put it in the freezer, then return to where I collected it a week later. If it's dead or dying, don't feed it out.