A great soft food mix for aviary birds starts with high-quality ingredients. But with a few clever additions, you can boost nutrition even further, extend shelf life, and keep your birds in peak condition. Here's a tried-and-tested tip straight from an expert breeder's own aviary.
A soft food mixing tip from ‘The Don’.
Don Birch – the renowned bird rearer from the Hawke’s Bay Bird Club (and a loyal customer of ours) has come up with a great way to increase the quality and longevity of his feed.
This soft food mix will last longer than the regular mix and, with the addition of rice bran oil, wheat germ and maw seed, is also more nutritious. Being high in vitamins and omega fatty acids this mix will boost the immune system, skin and feather health of birds.
‘The Don’ soft food oil mix
“Place 2.5 cups of Topflite soft food in the whiz and, with it going, add 4-5 dessert spoons of Rice Bran oil until the mixture is ‘gluggy’.
Then add approximately a ¼ to a ½ of a cup of wheat germ flakes to bring it back to a crumbly mix.
Finally, add the amount of maw seed you like.”
The mix will not go off the same as when water is added. So you can make up large batches provided it is stored in an airtight container. Then it’s just a matter of topping up your feed as is necessary.
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