natural food helps my ailing hens

[nat]

Ok, so 3 days ago I nearly started a thread on the health category to say that 2 of my older girls were on the way out. I thought perhaps point of no return, but decided to be positive and hold fire on the thread.
One is long term anaemic and often has a dirty bum so I'm always cleaning her, and had got to semi fluffed up stage. The other used to be obese but now isn't so much, but had a dry clagged bum and was very lethargic.
I feed eucy and willow virtually all the time, but this time the seeding grass was ready, so I removed all budgie seed and only fed willow, seeding grasses and today added chard to it. An hour before lights out I gave them budgie seed to top up with for the night.
Both hens have improved unbelievably!
I know it won't fix the 2 girls indefinately....but its worth noting that the foods you give them closest to what they would eat in the wild do seem to help alot

[stace]

The grass you've got for them is fantastic. So true about their wild diet being better for them than the processed seed we're limited in giving them.

[Hezz]

I have been doing some reading regarding avian vets and what they have to say on their web-sites, here in Australia, and one whose advice I am following at the moment suggests to try to get a feeding situation as close as possible to their origins is to remove their seed overnight, let them out and get them active first thing in the morning as this is when they would be normally having to fly to find food. Seeding grasses if possible, a scattering of seed on the floor of the cage during the day and seed removed again over night. That's not quite how it goes, but his version and my version of his version, in parts. While I am not scattering their normal seed over the floor of the cage, they do get down there to pick up seed that drops from the grass bunches which I put on the gym, on top of the cage.

He also advises pieces of eucalypt, bottle-brush, and the like every few days, as well as their veggies, so your method has some merit from a vet's point of view, Nat. I'm finding mine are eating less seed, even though I was giving them grass before, so I have to be thinking they are eating more grass seeds and less processed seed - can only be a good thing.

[nat]

Sorry Hezz, I'm not sure how I missed your reply!
I have really noticed the difference since the seeding grasses have become available.
Even the fat lazy girls will bother to fly to the wire and take the grass seeds, whereas otherwise they just sit on the perches and wait for their partners to bring the processed seed up to them!
Mine certainly eat less seed now they are getting the branches and grasses. When I feed veg in the winter I think only a few actually injest it (mainly the boys) and most of the hens just like to chew it and throw it around like a shreading toy!
I dry masses of dandylions, mint, lemon balm and raspberry leaves for the rabbits in the winter. I'm wondering if the buds might like these as well? Or they could be made into a weak tea perhaps?

[Hezz]

I wonder what they would think of the "rabbit food" dried? Interesting though, Nat - keep that thought and let us know how they go.

I have found that my budgies don't go so crazy over the veggies with the grass available all day. I still give them some about every other day, when I am getting our own, but as often as not a nibble is about it ...... corn being the exception.

You know raspberry leaf tea is supposed to help with shortening labour??? I took it all through both my pregnancies and there may be something in it as both were over pretty quickly! Wonder whether it would work the same with eggs .......... something to try???

[Deleted]

There are lots of wild food we can feed our birds. Mallow, Plantain, chickweed, cat ear, bitter cress, cleavers, clover, vetch to name a few. There are hundreds of wild plants that we can collect for free. If anyone needs some identification of safe weeds I am quite good at it and will tell you if what you have is safe. Take a picture of the plant in the place you find it, before picking as it is easier to tell what it is if it's still attached to the plant, and I will do my best to help. I feed loads of weeds to my buds, I hardly ever feed hop bought food as there are many chemicals added to help growing and pest control. Just make sure the weeds are not from the side of the road or from a fertilised/weed killer area. Childrens play parks are good as are country lanes and church yards. I get a lot from our allotments where I know everything is organic.

[nat]

Lol Hezz, theres an interesting thought on the Rasberry leaf/ egg laying! Maybe we could be onto something here!
My buds are the same too. Given the choice between branches, grasses and veg, they will not bother with the veg unless its chard at the moment. But I find they will eat only one veg for a few weeks ignoring all others, then favour another kind of veg for a few weeks. I guess that might happen at times in the wild when one type of food is more available than others so they stock pile nutrition from it? Next week they could well ignore chard and only want carrot lol!

I use my allotment too for gathering stuff for the birds and rabbits Starlingqueen. I tend to stick to my own 2 plots though as some people are prone to spraying weedkiller everywhere, including the path edges and you can't tell if its been sprayed for a couple of days!
I bought the book 'Food for Free' by Richard Mabey a few years ago while wanting to find berries to dry and freeze for the parrots and bourkes and found so much else in the book that could be used
My buds are loving hawthorn branches at the moment, but its a bit painstaking having to nip off all the thorns before hanging the branches up.
Perhaps it would be an idea to have a thread dedicated to identification of wild plants safe to feed budgies. ADF on the old forum made a wonderful sticky thread on exactly this topic

[Hezz]

nat, I know what you mean eating one thing one week, another the next. It makes sense really, as this is the way things happen in the real world.

Re raspberry leaf tea, I can imagine the cartoon already. I wonder if anyone has ever tried it?

[nat]

Lol, yeah :-) I'm just imagining a TV advert for pregnant budgies 'try this lovely regurgitated gooey tea darling, all my other wives love it'

[Hezz]

Out pops the egg - "oops, slippery little sucker! Damn, that wasn't due 'til tomorrow".