Austerity diets

[milo]

I have heard a little about "austerity" diets for gouldian and other finches- what do you still feed them with?
and when should these diets apply - I presume for a period prior to breeding.

[Jayburd]

For the last two on this or so my birds have had nothing but dry seed and water. Fnch mix and QFS tonic mix, which Im using because it's cold here and it contains a lot of oily seeds.
When the season arrives in mid-August, they'll be getting a lot more of the goodies etc.

[finches247]

I do a austerity diet from end of May to Start of september.Mine are just on a normal and tonic finch mix,grit,piminex,softfood and just no livefood,Veges,or a green seed.Its mainly to stop them breeding in the cold and give them rest from last breeding season.Then from start I introduce everything they were not allowed.Also Welcome to the Forum

[iaos]

Jay and Henry, I think you both have the wrong idea about an austerity diet. To me the feeding regimes you have described are more like a "non-breeding" diet. I don't do it myself, but understand that an austerity diet, as championed by Mike Fidler, consists of red pannicum, white French millet, grit and water for a 6 week period.

[Jayburd]

Ah, ok, yeah that sounds out right. Thanks iaos
I can't really do that tough because I don't buy individual seed types (horrifically expensive in Canberra)

[Danny]

Jay and Henry, I think you both have the wrong idea about an austerity diet. To me the feeding regimes you have described are more like a "non-breeding" diet. I don't do it myself, but understand that an austerity diet, as championed by Mike Fidler, consists of red pannicum, white French millet, grit and water for a 6 week period.

Seed, water and grit = malnutrition. The idea is a low fat diet that prepares a bird for the upcoming breeding season - as a reduced winter growing season would. At the end of the 'austerity' period the bird is expected to be able to launch into breeding in response to improve nutritional supply (particularly protein). The seed and water diet will have these birds ill prepared as they are insufficient in calcium and many amino acids essential for fertility. An austerity diet, done correctly, must still be a balanced diet and be suitable to have the birds physiologically ready to get hopping with the breeding season. The only reason Mike gets away with it with his method is he does it for only 4 weeks (he separates his pre-breeding period into pre breeding diet and austerity diet - really the whole thing is by definition an austerity period - just in his case a balanced and a non balanced version), not quite long enough to use up all body stores of vital nutrients, and then quickly resumes a balanced diet again. He is relying on a predictable response (a short period of malnutrition is expected innately) from a species (gouldian) that has a breeding season you can set your clock by - 95% of other finches won't work that way and most breeders would like to have an austerity period for the better part of winter (i.e. > 4 weeks). If you are breeding gouldians, then by all means follow Mike's advice but for other species you may not get the result you hope for in terms of predictable response.
When and if I use an austerity diet (which I did use this year as I knew I could not offer a lot of breeding effort over the winter with other commitments) I use my regular seed mix, and a 'soft food mix' comprising just light greens (not green seeding grasses) and boiled seed purely as an instantly recogniseable and palatable carrier for calcivet, tracemin and breeding aid - the component that is missing is the protein (live food) and supplements (egg and biscuit or similar).

As an aside, I also find it odd that people are happy to keep their holding cages on a plane of malnutrition with just seed and water available. It's not surprising so many newly purchased birds fall off the perch with egg binding as soon as they hit their new homes and fire up for breeding. Holding cages deserve a balanced diet too.

[djb78]

Very well said Danny. After reading an article about the austerity diet by mike he does do a four week diet prior to breeding season and also does a two week diet after breeding season to help them go into moult which then is followed by his rest diet. He only stated that this was done on gouldians. I'm thinking of trying his way on a pair to see how well they go and see the differences in birds health and breeding before i try it on all. I'm a great believer in not everthing works for everyone.

[milo]

Thank you all for the information