Handy little tip

[The Outlaw]

Just came across this today and thought it was an excellent tip. When adding powder supplements to dry seed mixes, its a good idea to add about a tsp of vegetable oil or olive oil to the mix. This will help the powder adhere to the seed and the bird may actually ingest it. Sometimes when I add oyster shell calcium or Benebac, more is left on the bottom of the bowl than actually finds its way into the birds.

THE OUTLAW

[BirdzRmylife]

Thanks Nancy,
I'm going to try that with the next bag of seed I buy for the fids!

Also, I've read that using healthier oils such as wheat germ oil and or codfish liver oil work nicely.

Also, I wonder if the oils would make the bird feathers softer?

[Joel]

Thanks for that reminder Yehudasf.

[Tiki]

Dumb question-does canola oil go rancid? How do you tell? Does it smell bad? I never use oil to cook with, only those spray thingies to keep food from sticking as I hate oily food. My hubby uses canola oil to cook eggs in-he likes them that way. The oil does not require refrigeration. I made a huge batch of precoated vitamin powder seeds and used about a bottle-capful of oil for about 2 kgs of seed. Is it still OK? I have a hopper style seed dispenser and it takes 7 teils about 3 weeks to empty a hopper. It's really a nice set up as it is designed so the bird perches just far enough from the trough so he takes a seed, sits back, eats it and the husk falls into a catcher thingy. And it is impossible for them to soil the food!

[Tiki]

Hi Yehuda, thanks for that! So in plain English, I'll have to throw out all that seed? :( The last thing I want to do is make my birds sick. :( I wish you had posted before I pre-mixed a whole 5 KG of seed-it was Sunday my time. Some of it is in the hopper, some is still in the bag. Are you a doctor? You seem very up on nutrition and chemical properties of food. I wouldn't have known about rancidity.

So this little tip really just works if you have small seed dishes that are filled daily? I don't like those open seed cups because with 10 tiels they always end up getting poop in it.

[sweetie&meli]

intresting....