Kakariki in the wild eat meat, insects etc etc...I dont think it is just a "protien" thing, but other stuff in meat, fleah, ofal parts, and the bone marrow and cartalage on the joints of natural meat.
There is no shortage of veggie protien in our diets....give them meat or frsh fish and they go crazy.
Why the hang pay for expensive processed foods when one can give them the natural scraps of your plate.
If you have a flock, and got left over stew/cassorole or roast chicken, thru the carcass or bowl of left overs in the flight , stand back and watch them rip it apart. _________________ My Spelling is Not Incorrect...It's 'Creative'
Peter and the rest of the guys, which seed composition are you currently using?
This is a mix of yellow millet, canary seed, saflowerseed, oats, groats, red millet, linseed, white millet, japanese millet, buckweat, paddy rice and hempseed. Then there is another mix which I use for sprouts. This contains mung beans, saflowerseed, buckweat, dari, english peas, chick peas etc. Both mixes form about 50% each of the total.
II fully agree. I recently came across a word called 'phytonutrients'. When you study that you can't past veggies and sprouts. I doubt if manufacterers can put all those nutrients in their processed foods.
There are in europe different food pellets, the producer all say it's full and balanced food for different bird species.
I have tried this pellets and the result is that your wallet is empty and the kakarikis don't eat it at all, they wil rather die then eating those pellets.
The great euro business
Now I feed the kakarikis a good parakeet seed mixture as basic and put if it's necessary more sunflowers, hempseed, blackseed and canaryseed mixture in it during the breeding and moult season, all sprinkled with a little garlic oil, wheat germ oil,sunflower oil or special fish oil .
They also get from the kitchen, vegetables,fruit, picked berries from the season, salat, cooked eggs compleet etc.... and soaked or sprouded seeds.
But they get no fresh meat or living insects, because i'm afraid about decay, instead of that they get lyophilised Silkworms ,shrimps or fishmeal.
Kakarikis eat almost everything, but they must eat the plate empty to get new food.
The basic seed mixture like the same as Peter.
Indeed I know they're eat meat from dead animals in the wildlife.
Do you know what i'm thinking about.
I think to feed them next year some stupid fat cats from the neighbourhood
Very cheap, cat eat bird but then bird eat cat , at last revenge .
But they get no fresh meat or living insects, because i'm afraid about decay
I admit, I get a lot of flak from other breeders etc...
1st it is cooked, it has not been laying around for days, and what the birds get is gone very quick...
Thu the big chop and chicken bones they throw in their water trays...
often they dive in (about 3") after a few days get them out when soft and crew up.
Our birds have hatched, grown up with it, and will have a certain 'resistance ' to bacteria, along with a full natural balanced diet and cider vinegar...
After all these yrs of doing so, we have yet to have a sick bird other than the occassional defective chick...which happens anyway.
Keep this in mind...you guys breed valuable mutations and kakariki are an exortic bird....
Breeders of other 'exotic species in NZ, From 'greys to budgies have a market to sell.
We cant release into the wild, very often there is no market , and technically they are illegal to sell in NZ...So bottom line our stock is expendable... and therefore can experiment, even to what could be 'extreme' levels, testing general opinions and therioes which so often turn out to be old wives tales..IF birds are kept as close to natural conditions as possible.
Even so I do and have proceeded with cauation, recommending to chop up bones, meat, 1/2 teasponn /bird /day....this creates a situtation with very little or no left overs....If you throw a chiken carcass in, do so in the morning or evening and remove after 8 to 12 hrs..if anything is left.
Keep in mind also...kakariki will not eat spolled fruit, or veggies, poisonous trees put in the flights, or meat that has gone off...just as they do in the wild.
If I had or ever have an issue, I would be letting you guys know staight away, posted and by personal contact.
I have old posts testing a new rat pioson product that doesnt harm hens, put branches and berries of privet, tobacco tree into flights.
We can 'afford' to do this, you guys cant risk your stock in such a manner. _________________ My Spelling is Not Incorrect...It's 'Creative'
killing, experiment, and no export
In the town where i live , they got this year in the zoo a kiwihouse with kiwi's from NZ.
It seems there is something wrong.
Anyway .... st.p.d DOC's
I think to feed them next year some stupid fat cats from the neighbourhood
hahaha this one made my day. I would like to try too. Stupid mice and cat for kakariki.
Tomorrow I'll experiment with some chicken bones.
Thanks for the tip about the seed mix.
Just 2 further questions about it:
- The base of the mix is millet or canary seed? (I don't remember from when I visited you).
It's said that canary seed "base" mix is better, less wastage than millet based mix.
- Is it budgerigar mix or actually parakeet (cockatiel, lovebird, neophema) mix? And then you add sunflower independently, it's not in the mix, right?
I have been told by Thierry that it's ok to post his "diet methods". It's a file he gave me some time ago in French, he uses them when lecturing at local clubs. I translated it into Spanish and English.
He uses those formulas for Cockatiels, Red Rumps, and Rosellas.
I hope you can understand it properly.
We use a 'cockatiel mix' butthese mixes vary from pet shop to pet shop, bulk supplier to bulk supplier....and the quality of seed varies hugly..u pay for what u get.
So long as it is of reasonable quality..u may have to add something to it..for kakariki I dont believe it is too critical as the eat a little seed, and heaps of scrap veggies and stuff...
And like I said before...feed the leftover seed to budgies what ever _________________ My Spelling is Not Incorrect...It's 'Creative'
- The base of the mix is millet or canary seed? (I don't remember from when I visited you).
It's said that canary seed "base" mix is better, less wastage than millet based mix.
- Is it budgerigar mix or actually parakeet (cockatiel, lovebird, neophema) mix? And then you add sunflower independently, it's not in the mix, right?
The mix I use is a 'mix for large parrots without sunflower'. The base is millet. Indeed these seeds are left to the last. They pick up the larger seeds first. I don't add sunflower.
- The base of the mix is millet or canary seed? (I don't remember from when I visited you).
It's said that canary seed "base" mix is better, less wastage than millet based mix.
- Is it budgerigar mix or actually parakeet (cockatiel, lovebird, neophema) mix? And then you add sunflower independently, it's not in the mix, right?
The mix I use is a 'mix for large parrots without sunflower'. The base is millet. Indeed these seeds are left to the last. They pick up the larger seeds first. I don't add sunflower.
I use also a mix for large parrots with sunflowers in it.
The base is 20 kilo, I put also 1 kilo sunflowers , 5 kilo canaryseeds,2 kilo hempseed and 2 kilo blackseed extra in it.
So I has said, they must eat first al seeds, then they get new.
Only that left are the empty skins from the seeds, and if maybe a little remains. I sprinkle it out in the garden on a square meter, so that the left seeds can germinate and grow to plants. Those plants are fed back to the birds. This way nothing is waste.
My impresssion is about 1/2 teaspoon of chopped up steak and/ or chicken
per bird ... and chopped up chicken carcass and bones. about 1/2 to 1 pea size...over 3 or 4 days will throw them into mating.
Thanks Peter & Peter for the tips about the seed mix
In Europe it's easier to find canary-seed based mix, but here is mostly impossible. I'll just use parrot mix then and add some hempseed and canary seed.
Now I'm taking care of the birds myself and I can feed fresh food, so seed mix can be a bit less perfect and still the birds will be fine.
They have been fed with a low quality mix and the result is a disaster, some of the cockatiel chicks are rather small, and have stress marks on the feathers.
Regarding pellets,
well... I didn't have the time back then to observe kakariki, but cockatiel eat it very well, and they feed the chicks with regurgitated pellet. This in my opinion has an advantage as this way the chicks are fed an uniform "dough" and it's easier for them to digest than regurgitated seed.
Indeed it's not the perfect food, but I think it's better to feed pellets than "shit quality" seeds. The result is that in 2008 some excellent birds were raised in my aviaries feeding them pellets + seed, and in 2009 I got 12 cockatiels of lower quality feeding them a bad mix.
Of course it's my fault to feed low quality mix, but my provider ceased business, and although they re-opened, they won't have seed until this fall.
As dry food I think a balance of 50% pellet + 50% seed it's not a bad choice + of course fresh veggie/fruit mix daily.
In Europe it's easier to find canary-seed based mix, but here is mostly impossible. I'll just use parrot mix then and add some hempseed and canary seed.
They have been fed with a low quality mix and the result is a disaster, some of the cockatiel chicks are rather small, and have stress marks on the feathers.
Regarding pellets,
well... I didn't have the time back then to observe kakariki, but cockatiel eat it very well, and they feed the chicks with regurgitated pellet. This in my opinion has an advantage as this way the chicks are fed an uniform "dough" and it's easier for them to digest than regurgitated seed.
Indeed it's not the perfect food, but I think it's better to feed pellets than "shit quality" seeds. The result is that in 2008 some excellent birds were raised in my aviaries feeding them pellets + seed, and in 2009 I got 12 cockatiels of lower quality feeding them a bad mix.
As dry food I think a balance of 50% pellet + 50% seed it's not a bad choice + of course fresh veggie/fruit mix daily.
Regards,
Pablo
Indeed , then you can better use pellets and seeds.
Or you can make your own mixture with pellets.
Did you now what the result was in 2008, I had only 1 chick.
Only because the seedmix seller had sell me an very old parakeetmix.
Is theyre food not good , then you got no healthy birds
I needed 6 months to get the birds in normal condion .
So there were no breedingsresults.I put the birds in rest.
Then I'd rather lose a year breeding, then the birds die.
This is an issue in NZ, any imported seed has to be 'nuked'
Another reason why we feed 2x a day veggies etc
They dont realy need seed....the live in the bush..grass seeds dont grow there....Anyway millet sunflower etc etc are all introduced to NZ
2L of seed mix per 2 weeks is not much for 30 odd birds..
And approx 10 to 12 kgs of fruit.veggies plus meat IS a hell of a lot. _________________ My Spelling is Not Incorrect...It's 'Creative'
Peter, sorry about your bad breeding results in 2008 and problems with the seed mix.
That's why I somehow don't distrust the pellets completely, I think maybe seeds + pellets is not a bad idea, for those who can buy all the time a good seed mix.
For instance is my belief that most cockatiel and ringneck breeders in the USA use pellets, and some of them are consistent show winners and mutation breeders, and feather condition and color and vitality must be good, or the birds wouldn't be fit to breed and win shows.
I have met in Phoenix a lineolated parakeet breeder, and her birds were far better than mine in size, color, etc... and she fed pellets + seed + veggies.
I will re-introduce pellets and we'll see the results, I hope they are a source of improvement.
Peter, I think you made the right choice on stopping the birds from breeding. Maybe I do the same and wait until 2010 to breed again.
No point on breeding birds of low quality.
Although, I must be honest and say my 2 kakariki pair have raised excellent chicks in all aspects, size, feather, color, etc... they please me a lot.
It's just the adult birds that don't look very well. I treated them with ivermectin and looks like the problem is solved.
Thanks to all for the useful tips _________________ AD ASTRA PER ASPERA
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