how do you guys blow your husks???

 

I am getting over having husks in my face, in my hair and down my clothes from blowing them off the top of the seed dishes!

 

Also, I feel like i am wasting heaps of good seed - Is there a way to separate the good seed from the husks in a more effective way??

I have lines on my feed dishes I have worked out that if I fill each dish to the line then when I refill it they are intrested in their food by not starving this way i just dump the left overs. Sure I might waste some seed but it's pretty much the left over stuff they don't like anyway. I tried the whole blowing seed thing and got so annoyed that I gave up!

I do not blow the seed off at all, my budgies get fresh seed every morning and in the afternoon i give the containers a shake and i find the fresh seed comes to the top and the husks go to the bottom.

Too easy...stand outside in the fresh air. Pour from one container into another with about 2 feet between containers....i.e. dish to bucket etc. Back and forth just a couple of times. The wind blows away the husks.

Edited August 14, 200817 yr by KAZ

I started giving my budgies a container full of seed and found the same problem. They cant get to the seed underneath all the husks and it would last around 3 days anyway. So now i will give them a chinese container of seed around 1 cm high which will last them that day. Its easier because you can see when they have finished there is no blowing or swishing to find the seed underneath. You just dump the whole lot and start again. Or you get a quail and let them pick through all the birds left overs!

The ones in cages I cheat and just use an old vacumm and just place it near the top of the dish and it sucks just the husks up easily without wasting seed.

I get all seed in a big salad bowl and pour small amounts at a time onto a slim line low plastic plate (like one from a bbq which are disposable)

I blow forward and shuffle the plate, blow forward and shuffle the plate, all husks naturally come to the surface as they're less "dense" Same with sun flower seeds... Only takes a few blows then i'll place them in another salad bowl ready for the aviary birds and start another plate load

 

May take me all of ten minutes, but after blowing all seed dishes from the cabinets which are changed every second day I save myself 1kg of seed !

Edited August 14, 200817 yr by *libby*

They are great ideas!!! Looks like my husk blowing days are over!

I like the pouring from one container to another idea - brilliant

I am too worried about giving only one days worth of seed - what if something happened suddenly and I couldn't get home to feed them

I use to worry about that but then I got a helper, my sister and my boyfriend so I figure that someone will feed them!

What a great topic, I thought I was the only one how seemed to end up with husks in her nose and mouth and eyes

 

I have ended up just using a teaspoon to scoop out the top ones. But now I have many great ideas

I do Kaz's trick- just dont stand downwind!! Also when its windy it swirls around so you start out okay then it gets you. The dishes I use now they can eat until its all husk then I tip out and replace- no blowing

i do the vacuum cleaner thing too... if you get the suction right, if your dishes are mounted on the walls of the cage, you don't even have to open the cage (thus reducing the chances of sucking the budgie up with the husks!) and can just wave the vacuum around near the edge of the food dish.

Edited August 14, 200817 yr by **Liv**
typos

I do the vac thing to , with the inside birds.

 

Out sides i just put up with wearing husks, i am sure it will be a fashion statement one day

I have a huge terracotta pot saucer (it's about 2ft wide), it's only about 1 1/2 inches deep so they have heaps of seed in it but it's shallow so nothing gets wasted, I replace it every second day.

I do what Kaz suggested. If there is no wind I will blow it while it is falling from one container to another. This blows it AWAY from you as it has no walls of the container to ricoshet back at you. So basically I act as the wind when there is none.