Feeding for fitness

GEOFF GALE shares some proven dietary advice relevant to exhibition lovebirds

- GEOFF GALE

WHEN feeding my lovebirds I always try to give them a varied diet as much as possible.

They are fed a good-quality lovebird mixture all year round as they prefer the smaller seeds to what you get in a parakeet mix, which I used to use when I first started with lovebirds. Back in those days, you could not get a seed mix just for lovebirds. It was not until lovebirds became really fashionable with the onset of the mutations occurring that seed merchants began to develop a lovebird mix.

Alongside the seed mix, a couple of days per week I give them a small dish of either hemp or linseed, oats, mung beans (dry or sprouted), budgie conditioning seed and safflower seeds. These are rotated so as not to use them as often as the daily seed. I also use wild bird seed from time to time.

I use red and white millet sprays, some of which are soaked for 24 hours. When there are chicks in the nest-boxes I give the adult birds soaked seed which is their daily seed mix plus a piece of soaked bread twice a day. I’ve tried the commercial softfood mixes, but the adult birds will not touch it.