Aussie Finch Forum

Hi, I found this article interesting Essential Oils for Birds http://petcha.com/pets/why-essential-oi ... your-bird/ Does anyone include coconut oil or borage and primrose oil etc... in their finches diet?

Never tried those but have regularly tried many seed-based oils as seed additives (eg sunflower, canola, linseed, sesame, wheatgerm, hempseed, corn, rice bran) plus less often garlic & cod-liver oil. Just be careful when trying some herb-based oil that the odour is not too overpowering or this could have a detrimental effect on palatability. Just a couple of ml of oil/kilo of seed is fine for dry seed or if wanting a stronger supplementary brew either mixed fresh each day or refrigerated for a little while around 10ml/kilo is ok. Most experimentation with these is safe given some commonsense.

Just noticed you are referring to essential oils which can be super concentrated so go way back for quantities used if using those. The less concentrated ones I mentioned are far cheaper, safer & provide excellent supplementation/nutritional value to improve basic dry seed for amino acid content & variety.

Thanks for the tips Tiaris