Aussie Finch Forum

After trying just about every grren food imaginable without success (including cucumber which is supposed to be their favourite), I finally found something they really enjoy - silverbeet stalks. They are absolutely destroying it, even the babies are having fun on it. Has anyone else found that their Gouldians like this stuff? I only tried it by accident as I was going to throw it out when I thought I would put it in the aviary for the canaries. Well the Gouldians immediately took to it.

Is it safe to give regularly as I imagine the stalks have a high water content similar to lettuce which is a no no.

I feed silverbeet to all my birds, lorikeets included, even the quail get stuck into it.

yep its great stuff mine all prefer pak choi tho

Yeah wont hurt them but just watch for squishy poos , now youve got them eating greens try different things you have leftover ..anything but avocados , onions .
Been meaning to try mine on capsicum while they are cheap ...

Apparently your not meant to feed too much silverbeet because it can combine with calcium in the body, so when the silverbeet is pooped out the calcium goes with it. Once or twice a week is ok though

And just as a test to see if they had developed a taste for all things green, I offered them some cucumber this morning. They pecked at it once and then flew away. Looks like silverbeet stalks is their favourite.

Mother has been feeding silver beet leaves, stalks and all to her Gouldians and Canarys for years. I have recently got some to try. But mine have been getting handfulls of wild millet and grass seeds from the yard which the love.
LML

This may sound ridiculous but I once read that spinach stalks are not recommended to feed to birds. Not sure if spinach and silverbeet are related, they look similar. I have still fed it too my birds on occasions though and have never had a problem.

On another note, there is nothing wrong with feeding high % water greens such as lettuce. There is not much gain becaus eit is mostly water, but it is a misconeption that they give birds diareha. It just makes their droppings watery which isn't a problem.

I feed Chicory, Endive and Lebanese cucumber as a basis diet of greens, and seeding grasses and milk thistles when they are growing here. I'm trying to get a few patches of Chickweed growing too

I think I remember reading somewhere that it was the slight acidic content in Lettuce that was the problem with it ??

bleeding green wrote: there is nothing wrong with feeding high % water greens such as lettuce. There is not much gain becaus eit is mostly water, but it is a misconeption that they give birds diareha. It just makes their droppings watery which isn't a problem.

As bleeding green said.
The largest problem is persons unfamiliar with birds tend to feed copious quantities to which the gut has very little enzymes existing to utilise nutritional value, therefore small amounts on a regular basis will multiply these specific enzymes to a point where diarrhoea will not be an issue. As for nutritional value of lettuce the most common used is Iceberg which of all the lettuce has the least nutritional content,as a rule of thumb the darker the leaves the higher the beta-carotene and iron content. Lettuce also contains lactucarium which is a very mild mussle relaxant that doesn't harm the bird at all and at times can assist in relieving complications of impacted stomach.