Lavender Waxbills


Lavender Waxbills Feeding
Richard's seed mix which I also use is - 15kg – Foreign finch; 3kg – Panicum; 3kg – Japanese millet; 3kg – Red millet; 3kg – Plain canary; 2kg – Niger grit, grated cuttlefish - always available & vitamins supplied thawed frozen livefood daily - buffalo worms and Pinkies thawed in water so they appear nice, clean & juicy some pairs eat very little, some eat Buffaloes but not Pinkies, others can't get enough (UK frozen livefood mail order supplier - www.priorspetproducts ) but preference can change dramatically when feeding chicks!! sample of 1 - the pair that bred never ate Pinkies beforehand, not much buffalo, hardly any Cede - so mainly seed with chicks - Pinkies seemed to be the main food for the chicks - day 8 started eating buffaloes - still little eggfood Eggfood availability varies - depending what birds are up to ie breeding or resting - not sure composition matters - plus diced chicory I now use a rearing mix based on that used by the very successful Paul de Nil
Paul de Nil's rearing food the lazy man's guide to
Paul de Nil is one of Belgium's most successful Waxbill breeders. He attributes much of his success to his rearing food. He makes his in the most cost-effective manner starting with white bread and eggs Although a little more expensive, it is even easier to start with your normal, eggfood The weights of eggfood given are basd on dry Cede™. If you use a pre-moistened eggfood it is a bit denser Perhaps increase the weight of pre-moistened eggfood added by say 20%
Item	Weight	Volume	1/4 Weight
your normal dry, seed mix (volume based on my foreign finch mix)	2Kg	3 litres/ 5 pints	500gm
boil seed (with 2 crumbled eggshells?) in tap water for 5 to 6 min's then rinse thoroughly in cold tapwater, drain
your normal, eggfood (my volume is based on Cede™)	1Kg	2.5 litres/ 4 pints	250gm
vitamins	8gm	1 heaped tblspn	2gm
granulated charcoal	20gm	3 tablespoons	5gm
frozen Pinkies (maggots) - 4% of weight of above mix (UK mail order supplier - www.priorspetproducts.co.uk)	120gm		30gm
mix vitamins, charcoal and Pinkies with eggfood (plus pollen powder? see below) then add eggfood (with mixed vitamins, charcoal & Pinkies) to drained, boiled seed and mix thoroughly
seal entire mix in plastic container(s) or sealed plastic bag(s) and freeze
take as much as you need for a week at a time and thaw only experience will allow you to judge how much to thaw thawed mix can be kept in the fridge and used for up to a week as required

The seed mix
If you have several different types of bird then mix the seed accordingly If you have Bullfinches which consume twice the amount of their seed than your foreign finches then mix two parts of your Bullfinch mix to one part of your foreign finch mix
if you have kept the shells of two hens eggs eaten recently you can bake or microwave them, crumble and add to the seed (if grit and cuttlefish is always readily available for your birds this isn't necessary)

Adding 'lead' to the cock's pencil/ conditioning
add the following to the above mix to bring cocks into condition - DO NOT use once laying has commenced
pollen - powdered - (from health food shops) (UK mail order supplier - www.bodykind.com)		1 tablespoon	1 level teaspoon

How often to use the mix?
initially use rearing food with pollen included once a week then use twice a week - to bring birds into condition (perhaps for about 6 weeks) STOP using for each pair as soon as eggs appear - for these birds use rearing food without the pollen - daily give daily to youngsters until they moult Paul de Nil recommends administering the rearing food once a day at 5pm The next page has some comments from very initial experience on breeding
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Interested in Blue-Capped Waxbills Photos of chick development & variation of Paul de Nil's rearing food - www.blue-capped-waxbill.com
If you have got this far you must be interested in Waxbills. Are you a member of The Waxbill Finch Society? - www.waxbillfinchsociety.org.uk An excellent Society for advice, booklets, videos, meetings and an active web forum
If you are interested in parrot-finches please visit www.parrot-finches.com