Live food!

[COUNTRY CAPITAL]

thought we needed more fincho's to "come out"in this section so here goes....
call me lazy but i dont want to feed livefood to my birds!!!!
i am weakening in a passive sort of way by including a vinegar fly trap in each aviary, but its just a few vege peelings right?
they have large planted flights with thistles with aphids etc so they get some protein right??
i weaken a little when i see the yellow rumps scouring the small spider webs around the flight frame for a morsel to feed chicks but....
A "fly box" must be the straw that broke the camels back surely? a trip to the rubber room for this one.
mealworms seem like a whole new hobby too and i dont need another one!!
termites seem a saner option but regular "field" trips and "sweating" seem like overkill to me.

Am i the only one who baulks at this aspect of our hobby?
i probably deserve a barrage from the experienced breeders among us, once set up it may not be as bad as first thought?
I know bluecaps/pictorellas need termites to produce well.....thats why i shy away from them....am i selling the others short?

form a line here to berate me....i have thick skin....just not thick enough for maggots

[Nathan Morleyy]

Country Capital,
I do not feed live food eather but the best breeder I know sed give them live food twice a day or not at all don't do it every couple of days you're better off not doing it at all just feed them lots of green food every day it works for me .


Thanks Nathan

[SamDavis]

CC, I used to have the same point of view about livefood as you do, but I've seen the light! In my experience the effort of collecting termites is well worth it. Larger and more numerous clutches all round and not just from the recognised livefood species. Even stars and painteds produce bigger healthier clutches. I'm pretty lucky as heaps of termites are only a five minute drive away - I go collecting about once a month and it takes only an hour or so.

[maz]

Mealies are so easy to produce and take up very little space or time I really dont see a problem, I feed them to my parrots and rats now so when I get some finches they will be ready

[jusdeb]

No , not a lover of live food . I dont have any birds that need eat and I think they get enough protein from bird bread and boiled eggs .

IMO I like to keep things simple which gives me more time to enjoy my birds ...did try maggots , did try mealworm farming and neither impressed me very much and to be honest not many of the birds took to the live food anyway .

[vettepilot_6]

Depends on the types of Finches you keep...some are happy with seed, greens, and egg n biscuit mix....some wont breed without live food...others will but you may only get one or two young out of each nest....as far as your vinegar fly trap try adding chopped oranges, and bananas etc,brings the little flys in quicker

[Mickp]

We're all different in what we would like to achieve with our birdkeeping.
In a lot of way's the live food discussion could become another discussion along the same lines as feeding pellets.
For me making live food available to my birds is a must, I try my hardest to recreate the birds natural habitat.
When I first started with finches live food was a sometime food, was always puzzled as to why some of my birds would suddenly throw out their chicks.
Now days the only live food my birds don't get is termites and thats only due to the scarcity of them here.
Even have my kids trained not to kill the old daddy long leg spiders, they are bird food.

[woodstockaus]

We've recently started doing the daily live-food thing ... so far I've spent lots of time chasing crickets around the house!

[natamambo]

We've recently started doing the daily live-food thing ... so far I've spent lots of time chasing crickets around the house!

Of course she claims they're escapees but I checked the lid this morning and I'm sure it was secure

At least I caught all the roaches

[Diane]

Of course she claims they're escapees but I checked the lid this morning and I'm sure it was secure

You could probably start your own I confess with that statement.