Aussie Finch Forum

saw these grasses along the road . any one know if they are safe for the finches

The bottom stuff looks like paspalum, which is not safe. Not sure about the rest.

Top one is either setaria or purple pigeon.
Bottom one is either bahia grass, signal grass or giant paspalum.
ALL are fine to feed to finches whichever of the above they are. Any grass seed is better than none IMO.

wildbill wrote:saw these grasses along the road . any one know if they are safe for the finches

The top one is one of the better seeding grasses with large seeds, I grow it but can never get enough. The trick is to harvest at the right time before the seeds start falling off or are eaten by other birds. It's one of the "Setaria species " wild (spray millet) it's completely safe.
https://www.google.com.au/search?q=Seta ... 40&bih=791

i agree with the replies so far, worth a try and will do no harm.
the paspalum is the only one i would withhold, just to be safe, but mine get spoilt for choice so would probably ignore it anyway.

I regularly use Giant paspalum, Broadleaf paspalum, Bahia grass & Signal grass heads for my finches. They are all in the paspalum family & are very good grass seeds for finches. Only picked when the black pollen pods have dropped and are not sticky. Ideally as the seeds are changing from green to pale brown. Beats the hell out of no grass seed.

Bottom seed head is Dallis grass (paspalum dilatatum)
I trialled this over summer ... it was shredded by my Crimsons and Diamonds but only at a certain stage of development .
It proved tricky to pick at the right stage and I abandoned the use .... spreads easily and is highly invasive and hard to kill , even with round up !
I was warned off paspalum as it can be very sticky (ergot) and therefore should be avoided .
People seem to think that the black furry stuff on the head of Dallis is ergot , I do not believe this is true however .
If your birds are spoilt for choice then I wouldn't bother with it .
Brad

Thanks Bmac. You've just made sense of something I couldn't work out. I've heard others suggest the black stuff on paspalum was the mould but it just didn't seem likely. I read Russell Kingston's The Finch... A breeders companion and he talks about the stickiness representing ergot but doesn't specifically mention paspalum. I've always found it to be sticky. Now I know to avoid the masses of it that grows at my place. Hmm, my chooks quite like the seed heads though. They get tons of other greens so hopefully not enough ergot to cause problems.