What you didn't want to know about seed.

 

As I mentioned before, I've spent some of my working life in the Grain, Seed & Animal Feed stuff business. So here I'm going to let you into a few secrets. They don't print on the pkt.

 

The Market.

The only seeds, at the time of writing, grown almost exclusively for birds are, canary, niger (nijer) & millet sprays, most of which are grown in Canada & by hill farmers in China & Vietnam as a cash crop. All the other seeds are grown for human consumption in one form or another. Usually under contract to buyers.

 

After these markets have been satisfied. The remainder referred to in the trade as, the "Leftovers". Are sold on for animal feed. Add to this the mill & silo clean outs. Seeds with a low germination rate & anything that gets hulled in the transportation & sorting process is automatically considered unfit for human consumption. For instance, maize, peanuts, sunflower hearts, nuts, peas, rice etc, etc... These can later be dried & chipped to make them into seed size bits as fillers, by the big international animal feed suppliers who will mix to their customers, (the seed merchants) recipes, bag with their logo & even deliver direct to their customers, or point of sale shops. This drastically cuts down on overheads all round.

 

Some of course, is sold on to smaller suppliers with their own bagging & packaging facilities. Usually with options for an extra polish & additives like aniseed & orange oil, & extra colour in the form of chipped chilli peppers for customer eye & nose appeal. Many bird keepers will happily pay extra for a colourful sweet smelling bag of seed. Virtually a big Pot-Pourri.

 

WHAT'S NOT IN SEED

 

Seed is rather short when it comes to protein & the fat content in some cases is quite high. as in sunflower, saffron & niger. (nijer) The little protein you do get is low in minerals like, sodium, iodine, copper, calcium, iron, magnesium, selenium & zinc among others. It's also low in amino acids & the vitamins A. B2. B12. E & K. The % of what seeds do & don't contain can be obtained from your countries Min of Ag.

 

It's well known that a pet bird with nothing more strenuous to do than stare at his own reflection all day. Can live up to 10yrs or so on an all seed diet plus an occasional treat.

 

THE NUTRITIONAL BIT.

 

A poor diet of seed only, will leave a breeding bird susceptible to various diseases & health problems, like poor fertility, laying, egg eating, desertion, none hatching, dead chicks & sudden death due to gradual organ failure.

A pair raising several chicks in two broods a year could be too physically exhausted to carry on, Any chicks raised on such a diet will appear quite healthy as they will have taken all the nutrients they need from their parents ever decreasing supply.

An all seed diet no matter what the mix, even if its fortified with a squirt from a can of vitamin oil,or dusted with mineral powder, which will soon join the rest of the dust at the bottom of the bag. Is going to keep birds in a healthy condition for the whole of their normal breeding life..

 

Neither is it natural for a bird to receive its full compliment of nutrients on a daily basis in the form of additives. Some additives have been found to interfere with the birds natural way of extracting nutrients from its food & there is no way of ensuring that any bird isn't eating more or less of the additives than the others.

Some additives added to drinking water, (Cal) have been known to deteriorate after a few hours..

Birds can function quite well on this system, their breeding life can be good, then gradually deteriorate as the years pass leading to early sudden death due to nutritional overload, along with all the ills of the under nutritional diet.

This is a waste of money & a misconception of doing good. A bird will never fully recover from the organ damage caused by long term over or under nutritional diet.

 

THE CONTAMINATED SEED....

 

Earlier this year 2012 in both the UK & USA. Two well known but unconnected bird seed suppliers were successfully prosecuted in their own countries for knowingly selling seed contaminated with a toxic substance. That's the ninth recall or prosecution this year That I know about. There could be more......

We're so lucky in the UK a, "DUTY OF CARE" was imposed under the Animal Welfare Act, way back in 2006. Unfortunately & typical all such governments not enough inspectors are employed to enforce this D.O.C.

As for the US firm, as the worlds largest distributors of both bird seed & garden pesticides. Argued that they used the pesticide to try to protect the seed from an infestation of mice.

They were fined a total of $6m. 7000000 units (pkts) were sold, luckily none of the US products were sold in the UK.......

Remember You can buy single seed packs & mix your own...Why waste your money on fillers & nice

smelling seed.. The fancy writing & the colour of the bag wont make your birds any healthier..B.J.

Hey BJ thanks. I actually love to know as much I can about bird nutrition

Hi Just noticed a miss print in my "Thing you didn't want to know about seed" ...the canary is grown in Canada the Millet sprays &

Niger are from china & Vietnam.....Sorry ..B.J. No edit button..