A lady i work on projects with called me the other day about her birds who had passed away at the end of last week. All where inside birds so we know the heat did not get them, she took one of the bodies to the vets and he told her that the bird had starved to death. She was shocked the bird had access to food, the same food it had eaten for the last three years what happened???

 

So we had a talk and I found out that she had bought one of those dehuskers, you pour the used seed through the top husks are blown away remaining seed is left at the bottom. So she had been doing this for about 3 weeks. Dehusk every day add a bit of extra seed every other day so the 8 Budgies allways had food. She also offered them veggies but outside of the celery she has had no luck in converting them to veggie (all are older birds bought in petshops and or given to her).

 

What we worked out is that she puts the seed in, they eat what they like. Dehusks the seed and gives them back the remaining seed. Issue with this is as they don't eat the seeds that have been though the dehusker it's like 8 birds eating a one birds rations of seed every two days.

 

Poor lady is really upset as she worked out that basically she starved her birds to death. Looking at the birds you would not have known they where underweight all where show type or close to show type and unless you picked them up and felt them then you would not know. She did notice that they had gotten quiet over the last week but thought that might have something to do with her keeping the house darker then normal to combat the heat.

 

Anyway, i just thought I would warn people, when you dehusk check what is left you bird might not eat the seeds that are left so basically you are topping up their feed bowl with no food.

That is scary and sad :cake:

 

I do this to a certain extent, but since I only have one budgie, I am pretty sure he is getting enough seed... plus there is more of his favourites underneath the husks if he was willing to dig deeper, so when I blow the seeds off the top I don't think that only the ones he doesn't eat are left.

 

Thanks for the warning though-- I will keep a closer eye on it

I am a bit skeptical about this. I find it difficult that the birds are only going to eat one type of seed and therefore starve themselves to death. I really feel there is most likely more to this situation. Some years ago the price for canary seed skyrocketed. It was like $100 per 40Kg bag. Now we know given the choice most budgies pig out on the stuff. Well when prices got steep I had to stop buying it as one of the main sources or food and feed as a treat. I never lost any birds to this. They eat what is on offer. It is possible that they could have had mega or possibly some other disease.

 

Did the vet do tests or just simply look at the bird?

I am a bit skeptical about this. I find it difficult that the birds are only going to eat one type of seed and therefore starve themselves to death. I really feel there is most likely more to this situation. Some years ago the price for canary seed skyrocketed. It was like $100 per 40Kg bag. Now we know given the choice most budgies pig out on the stuff. Well when prices got steep I had to stop buying it as one of the main sources or food and feed as a treat. I never lost any birds to this. They eat what is on offer. It is possible that they could have had mega or possibly some other disease.

 

Did the vet do tests or just simply look at the bird?

 

The vet did test and since she got the bird down there within an hour of the last one dieing (she was on her way with the remainig one and he died either on the way or at the vet I can't remember) all the test should have shown something.

 

Looking at her seed there you can see what they liked and what they did not eat. I always thought Budgies will eat whatever is infront of them, but I guess this is not always the case. Graned she was not buying the best quality seed (local supermarket type not sure which one) but this was the last option in a long line that we went down. I can't see another option as to what happened

Most plain brand supermarket seed has FILLER SEEDS in it...seeds budgie dont eat or like. So the savings are not true as half the seed isnt geared towards budgies. So, if she was buying plain brand I would understand how this happened.

Most plain brand supermarket seed has FILLER SEEDS in it...seeds budgie dont eat or like. So the savings are not true as half the seed isnt geared towards budgies. So, if she was buying plain brand I would understand how this happened.

 

Kaz is defiantely right there about filler seed. One of the biggests seed mix problem I consider on the market today is the parrot mix. Contains black sunflower seed, whole oats, corn, milo. Of that the sunflower is the first to go followed by the oats. Corn is harder to crack for the average parrot as is milo. Both corn and milo are predominately chook and pigeon food. The other thing to conside is weight. Sunflower seed is light compared to oats, corn and milo. So bulking up the mix we these will increase the weight and subsequently the price.

Thats is a bit sad . My friends budgie got sick once and that might have been a reason, i dont know the real reason but that could have been it sinse my friend fed the budgie weekly and the budgie was a handraised budgie so it was most likley fed daily.

 

My budgie likes to be fed daily because he doesnt like un-fresh seeds. I know this because he seems to only eat the old seeds if he is really hungry because usualy in the morning he eats straight after i change the seeds.

Budgies are known to not eat food placed in front of them they don't like or don't consider food and can even starve to death on it.

Sometimes when the shops has run out of budgie seed I buy canary seed mix instead. And when I sift their seeds I always find tonnes of seed they will not eat (usually the stuff that is not in the budgie seed mix) and it builds up. They could have a bowl of the left over seed and not touch it and then as soon as I put a new handful in they would ravenously eat it.

I used to buy the homebrand stuff, but there was so much seed they wouldn't eat or couldn't eat (it was bigger than their mouths) that half of the weight in the bag was not eaten and it was actually ending up more expensive.

I first hand can tell you a budgie will starve itself if it doesn't like what it is in front of it, Kaz can second it since she went through it with me with Merlin, I did a minor seed change but it was a bit of a different color and Merlin refused to eat and almost died on me. Thanks for sharing.