Aussie Finch Forum

Did you know that Gouldians are salt and lime lovers ?
Salt can be offered to Gouldians as plain, vitamin and molasses fortified cow licks as well as rock salt, cowlicks and rock salt can be bought from produce stores in 1 kg blocks, if too big for you, break it up and share it with one or two friends, for those who live in salt bush country add salt bush leaves or small branches to the aviary, they will relish these small fleshy salt bush leaves.
Lime can be fed as either common garden lime which can be purchased from nurseries or hard ware stores , place in small dish and make sure it stays dry in your aviary.
Lime, calcium and protein can also be fed to gouldians as raw egg shell, rinse the whole egg briefly under cold or luke warm water, crack the egg into a vessel which you keep for your own consumption,place halve an egg shell into an aviary, stand back and watch what is about to happen, they will lick the egg white from the inside of the egg shell
(protein) apart from that, they will also eat the raw egg shell which contains calcium and lime, try it, it will not harm your birds. Best wishes from Huckleberry.

All my birds have salt licks in the aviaries . ( Just dont put them on wire , they rust the wire ) and they get hard boiled eggs which I just cut in halves , rarely pull a shell out that hasnt got nibbles taken out of it .
Never have given raw egg shell though , bit concerned about funky organisms growing on the shell .

I give my birds saltblocks.I just smash with sledge hammer a saltblock up thats for the sheep or horses and give to birds instead.Cheaper to buy in big boxes than singurally.Birds love the salt.I even eat a bit of it.

I get mine from a fella on ebay . Its a natural salt lick and he bags up the rocks that are too small for bigger animals . Cheap as chips $3.00 kilo although postage is a bit steep $12.00 to send me 2 kilos however I only change it maybe twice a year so not too bad.

Collect the cuttlefish from the beach. Calcium and salt in one. And definately to the saltbush. And lime, well just grab a few chunks of limestone and pop in the avairy, they peck at it, get calcium, lime, and a beak workout.
LML

Good to have you back Hackleberry
cheers flavio

Thats some really helpful info-thanks huckleberry...will try the egg thing out today

Good to know, Huckleberry, back home I use lime as a drying agent, as well as, to accelerate decompsition of animal waste, that maybe left behind after cleaning. The birds, chickens, etc., do eat it. Same with the large animal salt blocks. Good information. Thanks.

bought an iodized cattle salt lick cut it up into 75mm blocks which are extremely hard was going to smash them up but figured try them first, finally after hanging for about 3weeks I noticed a gouldian attacking it in1 aviary, and a diamond fire tail doing the same in another aviary. yay

Great idea though i hope you aren't hanging anywhere near metal and in particular weld mesh as it will eat straight through it. It's best left on the floor imo as sweats in hot weather. Finches like it when it does as they slide their bills across it access it. Craig