getting birds to eat cake...

[toothlessjaws]

last night i decided to bake some finch cake. despite the fact that i have never had much success getting my finches to touch anything but seed, green seed, leb cucumber or mealies. for those interested i have listed the ingredients below, looselt based of graham bull's recipe. but my question is - anyone got any ideas at how i can convince my birds to try it out? i have left some crumbled in the aviary with green seed heads and mealworms in it today, but so far not a lot of interest in the cake itself.

ingredients (rough guess' - i wasn't too pedantic)

3-4 cups of self raising flour
i tsp of bicarb soda
1 dsp of baking powder
50gm of butter
10 eggs with shells
4 cups finch seed mix
2-3 cups of green seed picked from the garden
about half a mixing bowl of blended greens*
i whole madeira cake
3-4 cups of passwells finch soft food mix
200-300gm honey
and a super finely chopped star anise

* silverbeet, broccoli, bok choi and italian parsley

[teg33]

I suppose you just put pieces of the cake in with the normal food, keep doing that, and then just take out all the normal food for an hour, and replace it with the cake, in the same bowl, for an hour.

[Buzzard-1]

Put a Canary in with them!!!!!

[jusdeb]

All food out at night and cake put in first thing in the morning , taken out after a couple of hours and seed etc put back in ....works with parrots and I guess its worth a try with the finches ....good luck.

[MadOzzie]

Gday!

Thanks for the recipe.

It seems like a very big cake (how big is it ?) when there is doubt the birds will eat it.

You say self raising flour and bi carb soda and baking powder. Do you mean plain flour? As, I believe, SR flour is plain flour with bi carb soda and baking powder added.

MadOzzie

[toothlessjaws]

it was a big cake! or should i say 3 cakes!

hopefully i can get them to eat it - because being full of eggshells i don't i will be!

pretty sure i did use self raising AND added bicarb and baking powder because thats what the graham bull recipe said. not sure if it was a typo on his behalf?

[bob21358]

I have found introducing any new food takes a while. So keep persevering for a week or so, and then if they don't eat it then maybe a change is required.

Also may depend on time of year, what else is around, whether breeding etc.

Also what works for one person does not necessarily work for someone else!

[jusdeb]

Mine go through stages .
Usually they love my bird bread but since breeding season kicked in they have been eating madiera cake and hard boiled eggs ..not mashed together just cut up and put in a bowl .