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True Experience With Birds

How To Train Seed Eating Birds To Eat Greens

By G.A. Abbate Sr.

Greetings from the 90-degrees New Jersey, The Garden State.  The temperature all of sudden got really hot, however, the birds in my bird room, and I assume other fellow fanciers bird rooms, are breeding better. 

When I came back from Florida the first week of March, I brought with me several well-established tomato plants; in fact some of the plants had flowers and little tomatoes.  I set them in the ground when I thought the weather conditions were stabilized.  I covered the plants every night to protect them from the cold.  I put a lot of work in protecting those plants; the seed that we started in New Jersey around the same time are bigger, healthier, and stronger than the well-established ones that I brought from Florida.  In conclusion, you can plant tomatoes in March or you can plant them in June, they all are going to bear tomatoes by the end of July to the first week of August. 

Starting to breed birds early in the season in cold climate areas will give the same results that I experienced with the tomatoes in my garden.  Caged birds, regardless of species, will breed better in warmer climates coupled with the longer daylight hours.

In the last couple of months I received many private e-mails by Gouldian breeders and also I had phone conversations with Gouldian breeders in many parts of the world.  Some stated, "My Gouldians will not eat greens!"  Many other seed eating birds and especially the ones that have recently been imported do not eat greens either.  Gouldian Finches as well as other seed eating species in their natural habitat feed on a variety of seeding grasses and seeding weeds, they consume these seeds in the immature stage/milky stage, and therefore by feeding on these natural bounties is not necessary for them to feed on greens or vegetables. 

Here in the Garden State and I'm sure in other areas which have the same climate as ours, in every uncultivated field and also along side the roads, high grass is visible every where.  In fact, in the last few days, we have been cutting a lot of these grasses in the immature seeding stage, of course we gather these seeding grasses from uncontaminated, clean areas and they are fed to the Gouldian Finches as well as others including all Carduelan Finches and Canaries too.

I suggest that everyone that breeds Gouldian Finches to gather these natural foods and feed it to all your birds, you will enjoy watching your birds diving for it. 

My Gouldian Finches as well as all my other Finches at this time of the year are enjoying and devouring the natural foods available outdoors.  All my birds eat greens such as Dandelion, Chickweed, Kales, Escarole, Radicchio, green leafed lettuce (no ice berg lettuce), Rabe leaves, and other vegetables that we usually eat ourselves.  Three and a half years ago when I received the three original pairs of Gouldians from three different fellow fanciers they did not eat greens either.  The following is what I did to train them to eat right because greens contain nutrients similar to the ones available in seeding grasses in the immature stage.  All seed eating birds easily accept soak seed.  What I suggest to those who want to train the seed eating birds how to accept greens is to soak their normal seed mixture or any other soaking mixture.  Let me repeat the proper way to soak seed, soak the mixture preferably in a glass jar for about 8 hours, at the end of the 8 hours drain the water and let the soaking mixture stand for an additional 18 hours for the total of 24 hours.  At this time the seeds are nice and swollen up and are easily accepted by any seed eating bird.  Rinse thoroughly under running water and keep the unused portion in the refrigerator.  Then blend any dry nestling food with a variety of the greens mentioned above, then blend them together, then mix this with 50% of soak seed, place before the birds in a shallow dish a small amount at a time, and before you know it all seed eating birds will accept the above mentioned greens and vegetables. 

This is all for now, I hope that I have been of some help to other fellow fanciers.

Best regards to all,

G.A. Abbate in hot New Jersey, The Garden State