Aussie Finch Forum

Has anyone any experience with quaker grass? The seed head has what appears to be 2 distinct eyes resembling a blow fly. There is little nutritional information on the internet other than to mention that livestock find the grass palatable, but not very productive. It's not marked as an invasive plant, found in all Australian States,(although an introduced grass) yet from what I gather, we would be better without it. This grass was growing in significant quantities which would make it easy to harvest, but doubt lingers as to whether it would be worthwhile feeding it to the finches. Welcome any feed back on quaker grass.

Heres the photo taken Murf also known as shiver or shivering grass is some places.

That's what i used to call it, shivery grass. There is a lot around Rocklands reservoir,pretty useless for finches and i think for stock but if stock eat it,it should be safe for finches.
When there is a slight breeze those seeds shiver and twirl and look like they are insects buzzing around. Craig

I have tried to feed that grass to my finches with zero results,none of the different varieties of finches ate it,shame as there is heaps around,garyh

Great photo of quaker grass(shivery grass) Gomer. Craig wasn't too far out regarding where it was found. (north west of Hamilton). Not much of the seed head was collected as we hadn't come across this type of grass before, so thanks for the info Gary. Will still have a small amount of room in the freezer now for finch friendly seed heads.

A mate on FB said his Qaukers eat it there may have been a bit of pun there never quite sure with him.

When I was a kid, quite a few years ago, we used to call this "blowfly grass" because when the Freo doctor blew it sounded like Blowies. Never seem to see the stuff round this area these days but.
LML

gomer wrote:A mate on FB said his Qaukers eat it there may have been a bit of pun there never quite sure with him.

Yes it was a pun gomer, Quaker bird Quaker seed. I don't think he is the type to keep quaker parrots anyway. Craig