Feeding wrens & chats - what & how much?

[natamambo]

I have a pair of crimson chats and a pair of blue wrens arriving in the next week or so . They are my first insectivorous birds.

I'll need to train them to use premixed supplements (such as insecta pro) because my work takes me away from home at times and my wife doesn't want to be catching maggots and stuff. As we live in suburbia I don't have easy access to termite mounds either.

How much is "enough"? Do I just put a few mealworms in a tray each day, do they need dozens each day or some other answer?

How do I present them with live crickets without the crickets escaping? What other foods are good and how are they best presented?

What's the best way to present the supplements - dry, moist, mixed with finch crumble (which is what Vetafarm recommend) or some other way?

Is Danny's softbill soft food mix (as espoused in his conference notes!) all they need?

The aviaries will have plants designed to attract insects. There'll be native mint bushes that flower for much of spring and summer and are great for attracting butterflies and other insects, jonquils again for flowers / insects and also to provide the blue wrens with yellow petals for the wild things dance (with apologies to Deb ) and native grasses. Although the floor is crushed rock with paperbark mulch over it there will also be leaf litter and bark and redgum bits lying around in one corner to try and attract slaters (and I'll be catching them on a regular basis to add to that pile).

Mods, I've posted in this in the food section but maybe it would be better as a sticky in the softbill section?

[Tintola]

Firstly I would recommend that you obtain a book called Australian Softbill Management by Rosemary Hutton as it will answer all questions that you might have about the two species that you are getting. Are you going to keep both pairs in the same enclosure?
In the meantime to answer some of your post questions,
The Wrens can be maintained on just a good, moist softbill insectivore mix served fresh daily, but do better with some livefood, eg mealies, moths, crickets.
The Chats can be maintained on the same diet and some insects, with the addition of a nectar mix as they have close affiliation with the honeyeaters. Can be as simple as madeira cake soaked in dark brown sugar water or commercial lorikeet wet mix.
Many more insects are required when they are breeding and feeding young.
Both species do best in a very sunny aviary. The do not do well in shady, cold damp aviaries.
Both also like dense low cover and open sunny areas and leaf litter to fossick in.
Food of some description must be available at all times during waking hours.
Each bird can eat about a teaspoon of softfood a day and up to 15 or 20 mealies or moths, or 5 crickets.
Crickets can be presented to them in a deep plastic tub (at least 20 to 30 cm deep) in the shade with some leaf litter to hide in.
A compost heap with fruit peelings will attract many ferment flies and other insects.
Hope this helps a bit.

by Tintola on 23 Apr 2011, 12:42

SOFTFOOD MIX IS A TERM USED BY BIRD ENTHUSIASTS TO DESCRIBE ANY FOOD MIX WHICH IS A WAY OF INTRODUCING PROTEIN AND OTHER NUTRIENTS IN A PALATABLE WAY. IT CAN BE AS SIMPLE AS POWDERED EGG AND BISCUIT WITH A LITTLE WATER OR COMPLICATED MIXES BASED ON THIS TO SUIT THE SPECIES.

MY OWN MIX IS
15 HARD BOILED EGGS
COMMERCIAL BREAD CRUMBS
GRATED CHEESE 1CUP
SOAKED DOG BISCUIT (LUCKY DOG MINIS) 1CUP


EGGS ARE PEELED AND THE SHELLS POWDERED WITH SOME BREADCRUMBS IN A SMALL FOOD PROCESSOR
THE PEELED EGGS (THREE AT A TIME) ARE WHIZZED WITH SOME OF THAT MIX TO A CRUMBLY MIX
THE CHEESE ( ABOUT A CUP) IS GRATED OR WHIZZED A BIT FINER
THE DOG FOOD PROCESSED WITH SOME BREADCRUMBS TO A CRUMBLY CONSISTANCY
ALL INGREDIENTS ARE MIXED WELL AND TUBBED INTO PLASTIC TAKE AWAY CONTAINERS AND FROZEN UNTIL NEEDED.
THIS SOFTFOOD MIX WAS ORIGIONALLY MADE FOR VARIOUS SOFTBILLS (WRENS ETC.) BUT MOST BIRDS LOVE IT ONCE THEY KNOW WHAT IT IS.

FINCHES, ALL SOFTBILLS, SMALL PARROTS AND BUDGIES, FRUIT DOVES, ALL LOVE IT AND BREED VERY WELL WHEN IT IS OFFERED.
MIX MUST BE REPLACED DAILY.
MIX CAN BE ADDED TO OR INGREDIENTS DELETED AS REQUIRED FOR DIFFERENT SPECIES.
HOPE THIS HELPS

[Pete Sara]

I cant add to much to that , tintola knows his stuff. With the necter for the chats use about 250g of dark brown suger , the darker the better to 1lt of boiling water and let disolve. I make up about a quater of that and it keeps in the fridge for a week. I put a few drops of canary red factor colour in a shot glass and fill it up with the necter, this gets replaced daily as it will go rancid left out in the heat, they do need it. If you dont give them extra colour they will fade ..

Its better to give them more live food than not enough as they will only eat what they require and the more you can attract the better , the closer to the adult insect the better, I feed every couple of days crickets in 40 lt plastic tub, to control them a bit better put them in the fridge for a few minutes to dumb them down , it makes them a whole lot easier to handle. every day I put in paswells inscectavore mix, they don't seem to eat that much of it, also fly pupea , maggots and mealies .

Like Tintola said , get your self a copy of Rosmary Huttons book , its got lots of tips and well worth the read...Pete

[west finch]

Works for me some interesting reading .

[desertbirds]

As always i have to ask the obvious. Should you be asking these questions if there on the way ?? Chats and wrens are a whole different ball game and if you dont already have a handle on breeding and keeping some of the more insectivorous finches then dont buy them.No point guessing once they are in the aviary.

[natamambo]

DB, the purpose of the research is to keep them alive once they get here. I am a capable animal husbandryman, and have no doubt armed with the right information I can keep them quite well, I've had birds for 35 years, just not softbills. However no amount of reading and recipes can prepare you enough for questions like "how much" when that recipe that keeps disappearing says to use a whole ox hear broken down in to little bits, does one bird eat a whole heart a day or is that 12 months worth of food. Asking people in forums like his is like going to zillion club meetings all in a few days.

[desertbirds]

Fortunately they wont be looking for a ox heart everyday. The birds you have will actually survive on the smell of an oily rag so to speak. Boom and bust type birds. Im fortunate enough to see these birds at work and on weekends not far from home . Good quality live food and a regular supply of it with some variation would be paramount to my way of thinking,but then again i dont keep them.Unless they are conditioned to soft foods its a waste of time and a regular(daily) supply of live food is the key.Id be taking a few days off and watching the birds to see how much and what they eat.

[natamambo]

Thanks DB. I'm not into the foreign finches, hence the lack of insectivores in my collection. I suppose I could have taken it a bit further in the past with the longtails and the Gouldians but for 20+ years the longtails have been kept only as pets (healthy ones of course, just that breeding was not a priority), breeding was not a priority (they're really my wife's I suppose) and the Gouldians are only recent arrivals.

I chose the crimson chats only after doing lots of reading first, and have had the wrens on my wish list for years but I didn't expect to find an opportunity for a very long time, getting both from the same seller was most unexpected and as the new aviary was in the early stages of construction it wasn't hard to re-configure it to suit.

I envy you where you are. The highlights of a trip up the centre in 2002 include a pair of longtails drinking from out dripping tap at Kakadu ()regrettably when the camera was not at hand) seeing the chats at the desert park in Alice (we didn't see any in the wild) and seeing a night parrot near Uluru. Maybe my lack of foreign finches is attributable in part to my deep love for the Outback, both its plants and its birds.