Aussie Finch Forum

I have always known this seeding head as
Algerian oats or long flowering Veldt grass.

or Mini Oats. Either way its a great grass head available at a time of year when the warm weather grasses are not freshly available & as you've said most finches love it.

Collected these today.

Veldt

I like the idea of juice bottle hanging with rotten fruit , will give it a go
Thanks Tricky

My ruddies either have young in the nest or will do any day now. I saw the hen at the mealworm dish yesterday. Will they eat a full size mealworm? I got some minis but don't think they will last long. I also have a couple of containers for fruit fly in there but there doesn't seem to be many in them yet. I'm currently putting some minis and some normal mealworms in each day. The minis are going first and sometimes there are normals left over. I do have rfpf's and painteds in the aviary too who also could be eating them.
Cheers
Daz

dazzab wrote:My ruddies either have young in the nest or will do any day now. I saw the hen at the mealworm dish yesterday. Will they eat a full size mealworm? I got some minis but don't think they will last long. I also have a couple of containers for fruit fly in there but there doesn't seem to be many in them yet. I'm currently putting some minis and some normal mealworms in each day. The minis are going first and sometimes there are normals left over. I do have rfpf's and painteds in the aviary too who also could be eating them.
Cheers
Daz

Hi Daz,African finches bite the heads off large meal worms and toss them so are wasted.Mini's are eaten whole buy both but the rfpf's will devour both sizes until all gone,i think you need to get on to bush fly maggots. Craig

Thanks Craig
I wasn't going to do maggots anymore hoping the mealworms and fruitfly would suffice. But I was actually today trying to work out how I could get power to my small garden shed in case I needed to set up a fly box again. I couldn't do it where I use to cause our hairdressing salon is now next to it. I think your right mate, maggots would solve my problem. Might give a local guy a call and see if I can get some off him to get started. Hopefully my ruddies can keep feeding the young in the meantime.

Has anyone got any tips on managing a fly box for only a few pair of birds? I have done it before but have either had not enough maggots or too many!
Daz

dazzab wrote:Has anyone got any tips on managing a fly box for only a few pair of birds? I have done it before but have either had not enough maggots or too many!
Daz

Hi Daz,It's all down to keeping the fly population up by adding maggots/pupea at least once a week to your fly cage.Some people forget this and their quantities of maggots fluctuate badly.Remember you can have a cage full of flies even if you don't need to use them to breed maggots but they are there when you do want to.
Excess maggots can be stored in dry bran/pollard without a lid in the fridge on setting 1 and they go dormant but quickly come to life a few minutes after taking them out and feeding them to your birds.
It's all trial and error till you work out a system that suits you,just make sure that when you are using them out of the fridge, that there enough maggots left in there to cover the couple of days you need to get your next batch through from the fly cage. Does that make sense? Cheers Craig