Diet for Seed-eating Baby Birds

Ron Hines DVM PhD 5/4/06

Seed-eating passerine birds all belong to the order Passeriformes. They make up approximately half of all the World’s bird. They all have feet adapted for perching and all produce chicks that are naked and immature at birth. Adults are easily identified by their short, stout, triangular beaks. Unfortunately, their young are indistinguishable from insect-eating birds. The seed-eating Passeriformes include all the sparrows, finches, grosbeaks, juncos, cardinals, and buntings. Young of this group open their eyes when they are between 3 and 5 days old and leave the nest when they are between 14 and 21 days old. Adults of this group have thick ventricular stomachs (gizzards) that contain stone grit to help digest their seed diet. These, as well as pigeon-like birds will thrive on the diets listed below. If you are not sure whether your birds are seedeaters or insect-eaters, use the insect-eater formula, which is higher in protein, just to be safe.

I like to prepare a diet for seed-eating birds that contains 21-30% % crude protein, 2-3% fat, 6-12% and 6-12% fiber. As the birds mature, I drop protein and fat content and elevate fiber content. I begin with a base ration that approximates these levels. An excellent base ration are Mazuri’s pheasant starter 5637, Monkey Crunch 20 (www.mazuri.purinamills.com) or Zupreem’s AvianBreeder Natural™ Diet (www.zupreem.com), generic monkey chow or turkey starter. After grinding, Mazuri’s product can be fed as it comes. If I use the Zupreem product, generic monkey chow, or turkey starter, I supplement the protein with the addition of soybean meal, wheat germ and dried whole egg in a ratio of 4:1:1:1. I pass the pelleted chow through an old-fashioned crank meat grinder to powder them and store the powdered product in the freezer until it is used to prevent weevil and moth infestation. I reconstitute it with drinking water to the consistency of pabulum or watery grits.

If, for some reason, the above diets are unavailable, you can produce a good seed-eater diet yourself: In a bowel, mix one cup of corn meal, one cup of instant oat meal and two cups of grated whole, hard boiled egg. To this mixture add six crushed 750mg calcium Carbonate antacid tablets (Tums or generic equivalent), 1000 iu of vitamin E, 500mg of vitamin C and any multivitamin/mineral tablet that contains among its other constituents, approximately 5000 iu of vitamin A and 400iu of vitamin D3. Since many vitamins do not specify vitamin D isomer, I use as a vitamin source one teaspoon full of Plex-Sol C (Vet-A-Mix) multivitamin, or one Mazuri 5M24 tablet per batch of food. I feed young birds every hour during the day with forceps or tweezers. Taping the tweezers on the side of the container or brushing it over the bird’s beak will cause it to open its mouth (gape). Feed until the bird no longer trembles it wings when it opens its mouth. Do not feed a healthy chick to the point where it only half-heartedly opens its mouth. When you are done, clean the bird’s beak and face with a moist facial tissue. Do not give the nestlings water until they are moving freely about the bottom of their cage.
As the birds mature and begin walking and hopping about, sprinkle very small amounts of oyster shell grit and wild bird seed mix on the floor of the cage as well as raisins, diced apple grapes and berries. Also place jar caps of water in its cage at this time. Be sure the bird is in a secure cage when they begin to test their wings.
Fledglings are reluctant to stop begging for food in captivity and in the wild. When they are fully feathered (fledged) they should be able to eat on their own. To be sure the bird is eating adequately and loosing only moderate weight, a postage scale is helpful.
. A good judge of your feeding technique is the absence or near absence of stress bars on the tail and wing feathers (primaries) of the fledged nestling. Multiple stress bars or band-like creases in the feather fletch are due to periodic decreases in blood nutrients. This is usually a sign of too infrequent feedings.

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