Food For Chicks Options

[Taboo]

What are people feeding there breeding birds to feed there chicks?
I know some like to use egg and biscuit and oats, what's your recipe to grow strong and healthy chicks

Cheers

[KAZ]

My soft food recipe is

2 parts Instant dry porridge oats ( like rolled oats but finer )
1 part Polenta ( corn powder )
1 part Budgie starter
1 part egg and biscuit
1/4 wheatgerm
1/4 part whole egg powder
1/8th part whey protein isolate ( Muscle XL by Kohnke's http://www.horsesuppliesdirect.com.au/prod2776.htm )
a squirt of calcivet
a dash of soluvite D breeder
water to mix.

thats my soft food for all............usually I mix the dry ingredients and store it in large plastic cannisters ready to wet it down or add wet ingredients

and in the breeder cages they get finger drawers also of dry whole egg powder which they eat before going into the chicks to feed them.

Since I have used the whole egg powder and the whey protein the chicks coming through have been larger and more powerful looking.

Mine get vegies and fruit too...........all the time. I just posted about softfood as it was about food for the parents so they could feed babies I thought.

This post has been edited by KAZ: Jul 23 2010, 21:45

[Taboo]

Thanks Kaz, what no steroids in there lol

[GenericBlue]

mine is alot simpler

the breeders get fresh English spinach or silver beet
carrot cut in to a half dayly
corn once week
and a quarter peace orange dayly
the soft food is just boiled eggs for 10 minits grated carrot and weetbix mixed and crushed together shell and all
sometimes i great zicceni into it and give beetroot or grate it in to soft food at least three times a week if not more
they get pidgon vitamin mineral powder in finger draw with egg n bis kit dry in finger draw and
their iodine and calcium blocks
and cuttle fish and shells small seashells in fingerdraw
and fresh water daily
also hulled otes seperate dish and small parrot mix seperate dish with one bit horse chalf mixed into it
their seed is half finch half budgie breeders
also give one millet per day per couple and one in box soon as chicks turn two weeks old

[Squeak_Crumble]

Mine get a blended mix of"

-Grated Carrot
-Egg and Biscuit
- Boiled Egg
- Bread Crumbs
- Powder cuttlebone
- silverbeet

And added whole they get:
- Strawberries
- Carrot
-Silverbeet
- Fresh Sprouts

Along with cuttlebone and iodine blocks.

[rachelm]

I have purchased Farm Pride whole egg powder, can i give as is or do i need to cook it first?

This post has been edited by rachelm: Jul 28 2010, 00:21

[KAZ]

I have purchased Farm Pride whole egg powder, can i give as is or do i need to cook it first?

I use it in my soft food as above. I also use it in finger drawers for parents feeding chicks ( dry powder ) and served dry to babies in the kindie cage too.

No cooking necessary.

[Finnie]

I've been following this thread, and today I wanted to look it up again to see Kaz's ingredients, and for the life of me, I could not find it.

I was checking all the different forums that seemed feeding related, and even the faq's section.

I finally found it by looking up 'this week's active topics'. That's when I noticed it is in the 'Breeding Show Budgerigars' forum! I never thought to look under Show Budgies!

Could we maybe get this moved to the food and nutrition section, so it's easier to find if someone wants to know what to feed their breeding birds?

[splat]

mine is alot simpler

the breeders get fresh English spinach or silver beet
carrot cut in to a half dayly
corn once week
and a quarter peace orange dayly
the soft food is just boiled eggs for 10 minits grated carrot and weetbix mixed and crushed together shell and all
sometimes i great zicceni into it and give beetroot or grate it in to soft food at least three times a week if not more
they get pidgon vitamin mineral powder in finger draw with egg n bis kit dry in finger draw and
their iodine and calcium blocks
and cuttle fish and shells small seashells in fingerdraw
and fresh water daily
also hulled otes seperate dish and small parrot mix seperate dish with one bit horse chalf mixed into it
their seed is half finch half budgie breeders
also give one millet per day per couple and one in box soon as chicks turn two weeks old

This is the same as Clearwings soft food mix GB did he give it to you or does some of the breeders down there use it.

[rachelm]

I have purchased Farm Pride whole egg powder, can i give as is or do i need to cook it first?

I use it in my soft food as above. I also use it in finger drawers for parents feeding chicks ( dry powder ) and served dry to babies in the kindie cage too.

No cooking necessary.

Thank you, just checking. (Raw egg-salmonella-food poisoning).

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[KAZ]

I have purchased Farm Pride whole egg powder, can i give as is or do i need to cook it first?

I use it in my soft food as above. I also use it in finger drawers for parents feeding chicks ( dry powder ) and served dry to babies in the kindie cage too.

No cooking necessary.

Thank you, just checking. (Raw egg-salmonella-food poisoning).

Raw egg does not in most cases create salmonella poisoning...........its one of those scary stories people tell.
Anyway the powdered egg isnt raw egg.

[splat]

It is with any soft food should take it away after a few hours. Meaning don't leave it there all day or over night that is when the bacteria sets in. Hot weather is much worse too.

[Taboo]

What sort of consistence do you make it to?
I find mine goes like porridge if I add too much water and like glue it I add not enough.
The egg and biscuit gets very sticky.

[KAZ]

I make mine like porridge consistency.

[splat]

You must be careful feeding soft food because it too sticky it can get stuck under the babies beak, and really if you soft feed you should check their upper beaks often too make sure no soft food has not caked up there. Deformed beak occurs if this happens.

[GenericBlue]

in reply to you splat
i may of asked for some advice from clearwing earlier in the year when my birds were dieing for no apparent reason
and he did help me out with how to fix my aviry and i asked him what he feed his breeding pairs
(soft food wize ) the other things are a mix of two other breeders feeding plans and it all works for me so far

[KAZ]

You must be careful feeding soft food because it too sticky it can get stuck under the babies beak, and really if you soft feed you should check their upper beaks often too make sure no soft food has not caked up there. Deformed beak occurs if this happens.

This occurs under normal circumstances in the nest too, without the involvement of soft food.

[GenericBlue]

You must be careful feeding soft food because it too sticky it can get stuck under the babies beak, and really if you soft feed you should check their upper beaks often too make sure no soft food has not caked up there. Deformed beak occurs if this happens.

This occurs under normal circumstances in the nest too, without the involvement of soft food.

yep why you must always cheak babys dayly in mouth dayly fron two weeks on
i actually do it from day five on but usually after two weeks it needs cleaning

[splat]

Here are a couple of recipes,
Thsi is Geoff and Gb,s recipe, nice and simply

1 grated carrot
1 whole boiled egg
2 or 3 weetbix
Blend infood processor until it is a crumble mixture.
You can add more of each fore more breeding cages.


Recipe 2
Daryl's old recipe (Daz)
Soak 1/4 cup of both wheat and hulled oats over night with aviclean to stop
bacteria. but if you don't have it vinigar works just as good.
Next morning rinse very well and drain well.
Twice a week add 1 hard boiled egg (shell and all blended in Blender) and a grated carrot.
Add 1/2 cup of budgie starter and crumble mix.
(mix is 2 starter to 1 crumble)
It is enough to feed 14 breeding cages.
***Budgie strater and crumbles is from Passwell and you can buy from pet shops

I use the above 2 recipes but this year I have used Geoffs adding extras plus I use whole egg powder now not fresh egg.

Recipe 3
This one is called Awesome soft food
1 1/2cups of minute oats.. they are finer than normal oats
1/4 cup of processed Bran
1/4 cup of wheat Germ
1/4 cup of egg and Biscuit
2 Carrots
2 Hard boiled eggs
3 Endive leaves or
Bunch of Parsely.

Mix dry ingredients together in a bowl.
Put hard boiled eggs including the shell in food processor then add add'the processed egg
to the dry mixture.
slice up carrots and then blend in food processor.
Add carrots to dry ingrdients.
Finely chop endives and /or parsley (you can alternate between the two every few days)
Add chopped endives /parsley to dry mix, egg and carrots)
Mix well...
You can lesson the recipe as needed.
You can add polenta foe a change and burghal(cracked wheat)
And finely chopped bok choy.

The mixture can be stored in an air tight container in the fridge foe a few days.
But i like to do it fresh each day.

RECIPE 4

This recipe for soft food and quantities are for 30 Breeding Cages
Any surplus can be put into the flights each day and quantities can be adjusted for smaller numbers.

* 1-2 handfulls of toasted (or dried) breadcrumbs
* 2 hard-boiled eggs ( boiled for at least 20 minutes)
* the egg sgell from eggs above

A Selection from the following:

1. Grated carrot
2. Grated apple
3. Parsley
4. Sage
5. Coriander
6. Mint
7. Basil

Method:
Throw the whole lot into a food processor and process counting to 10, or until crumbly.
Serve fresh daily into individual dishes for each breeding cage.
remove all uneaten food within a few hours, sooner in the hot months.

These recipes are for ideas, I use daz's and Geoffs.