Food quantity

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Food quantity

Postby chibi-tori on Wed Feb 14, 2007 10:17 am

I think I posted some time back about this, but I'd like to revisit and discuss how much your kids eat. I did some measured food portions for a couple of days, and was kind of surprised at the small amount of consumption for the flock. When I talk about food, that would be just seeds, pellets, and not counting any human food or millet sprays. On one day, I placed 50 grams of seed in each dish, plus 10 grams of Kaytee exact parakeet size pellets. Volume wise, it appears to be a lot. I also had a separate dish of another seed / nut / fruit mix measured out to 20 grams, or about 2 tablespoons. The results at the end of the day were way less than I expected, with all 6 birds only consuming by weight, roughly 48 grams of food in all combinations. There is a lot of waste seed they won't eat, like the safflower seeds, the little shaped thingies in the seed mix, and some strange looking pellet shaped items. As a general rule, each mix had about the same amount of sunflower seeds in it, and from appearance, most of the sunflower seeds were eaten. Also, I try to get some idea of how much food is wasted and dropped into the bottom tray. Some days it's a lot, and some days, there is only minimal waste. Either way, for them to consume by weight only 8 grams of food, I'd think nobody was really pigging out.

So, have any of you actually measured how much your kids eat, or weighed the consumption? How much food do you place in their feeders in the mornings? I'm still trying to get some weight on all of them except Gizmo, but it seems they will only eat what is necessary for sustenance and little to no indulgence.

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Hi, my name is Sam, and I'm a 'tiel addict !
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  • Postby theo streeter on Wed Feb 14, 2007 1:27 pm

    Sam I can't tell in weight but it is a lot. Infact Sally seems to be constantley eating. as i said in previous threads I like to vary there food to keep them intrested. what ammases me is the last few days my guys have been out on the grass and they seem to love eating it. Oversley untill Monday they had never had any can anyone say if theres some kind of nutrigents in it they like.?
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    Postby Luna Bella on Wed Feb 14, 2007 3:44 pm

    I admit to be a bit neurotic in the food department! All of the experts cite percetages of food i.e. 20% fresh, 60% pellet 10% seed 10% treats. That's all well and good - but what quantitiy!!!

    When I gave Luna stright seed, it's about 1 1/2TB. And I am a bit frugal (money got very tight recently) so I clean the seed by blowing the hull off. (I mentioned being nuts!) What isn't eaten, I'll sprout.

    I try to seperate the different foods into different cups to try and reduce waste. The vet gave me some Lafebers high calorie vet dispensed only avicakes to put some weight on her. She did gain a few grams, loved it but I noticed not all of it was eaten. Since it is stuck together she seemed to enjoy carrying it around and dropping it :?

    I don't buy pellets mixed in the seed because she doesn't it them. She'll it pellets if I hand feed them to her-talk about spoiled!! She also gets brocollis slaw with carrots and red cabbage, leaf of kale and some peas or corn. NO - she doesn't eat every thing, more like dozen bites of each fresh item

    I picked up the regular avi-cakesagain to try it. She loves it but doesn't seem to eat all of it. Again, carryiny it around and dropping it - she gets about 2-3 cakes a day if I don't give her seed, about 1 1/2 inch piece of millet 2-3 times a week and a seed treat stick a coulple of times a week before going to bed only.
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    Postby theo streeter on Thu Feb 15, 2007 2:29 am

    ordered a fifty pound bag of food from petco today. Boy that should keep the monsters happy
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