Using Boiled Rice

[jnorriss]

Has anybody used boiled rice as a finch feed. I tried egg and biscuit but that did not seem to get eaten and also attracted ants. I had some left over rice and put some out with the daily vegetables only to find it was taken up voraciously by my birds. I have now taken to supplying it when birds have young to feed but find that the Cubans, Chestnuts and DBs eat it before eating vegetables and of course the zebs seem to eat it as main feed. I think it is a good bulk food for those needing to feed young. The King quails also love it. I think they think they are ants eggs.

[djb78]

Only issue I see using it as the bulk of rearing food would he low nutritional value. It would be good to add mixed with foods such as egg foods.

[GregH]

White rice has the bran layer polished off and is very low in nutrients compared to the whole grain but the carbohydrate in the cooked product is readily assimilated. You certainly need to provide other foods in addition to white rice even for birds like zebs that have low protein requirements.

If rice grains can be mistaken for ant eggs then you certainly don't want to attract these monsters into your aviary. For your higher value foods you can feed them in a dish sitting a pan of water or more elaborate arrangements with oils or ant-sand so as to exclude ant raiding parties.

[E Orix]

Boiled rice is fed by a number of breeders but most likely mainly as a filler.
It is fed as a mixture of green peas,corn kernals and rice.It seems to be good when you have breeding
birds with big clutches of advanced chicks.It is good in as much as the parents can fill the chicks up quickly
then they have more time to get the better harder to find live food etc as they can be basically topping up the chicks.
I use Pound Cake/ Soaked Seed in a similar way.