Aussie Finch Forum

Just a question, suppose the title says it all. Has anybody used them as live food? I used to use them for my tropical fish tank but once I got rid of the smaller cichlids and tetras they sort of went out of my mind. After the last week of sudsy weather in Sydney I mistakenly left two 25 litre buckets outside and they have now a s..t load of wrigglers in them. Any thoughts of just straining them out with a fine net and feeding them out alive? Water is just rainwater, not dirty. Saw something recently about tadpoles so I thought this might be ok. Need to know shortly because with the amount of wrigglers if I dont use them or dispose of them there will be some sleepless nights.

thanks

Ken.

Like you I have only ever used them for fish or frogs. If you try it let us know how it goes.
LML

In an article last year in Australian Aviculture, Graham Mitchell - a keen native bird aviculturist and former Director of Melbourne Zoo - made an observation about his finches taking wrigglers.
He mentions redbrows and painteds plucking wrigglers from dishes of water deliberately set up for them.
He also says his maskeds take them but may have learned from the redbrows in the same aviary.
As an addendum, he says at the time of writing (March issue of AA), doublebars have also picked up the habit from the redbrows.
Cheers
Tom