[Sadgit]

I have always been a pellets man, but was reading an article about feeding the dumb birds and it says best to feed them mash BUT DO NOT ADD WATER and leave it as dry mash. This apparently keeps them more occupied as they spend more time feeding trying to eat the dry mash than the pellets.

Good idea or plain bonkers? I am going at the weekend to buy them more food and was wondering which would be the best option??

Cheers
SG

[Vember]

Hi SG

Think I've read somewhere that you can get more waste with the mash :?

Not sure though I've always used pellets


Sarah

[Kate and her Ducks]

I'd heard the same Sadgit but that you get more waste and that sometimes they just pick out the bits they like and don't get a balanced diet.

[richyrich7]

I always used to give mine dry mash never thought of putting water with it sounds far too messy and prone to mould etc growing on uneaten bits. I changed to pellets on the last lot of birds I had as I found it was getting wasteful they where chucking it everywhere, I think my home made feeders a little shallow for mash.

But it does take them longer to eat mash than pellets, so if your have a feather pecker or they just look plain bored you may be better off with mash as it will keep there little minds occupied on something other than getting up to mischief  

[Sadgit]

thanks for the replies.. I might do a mix of half and half and see how they go.

They are starting to get a bit noisy and I think they are bored, hence me making a bigger run with more for them to do. I do let them roam at weekends in a fenced off area and I think they long to get out, so want to do more to occupy their tiny minds.

[poultrygeist]

I'd be interested to know the result sadgit. I want to keep ours occupied more.

Rob

[richyrich7]

One of mines attempting to assassinate the resident blackbird at the minute, poor things just landed near the bird table and had 4 hens go for him ! now one is stalking him through the bushes.  :roll:

[Kentish Karl]

I brought my ark in june. I built and extension run to put along side it, which is 1.5 mtr x 2.4 mtr, where it butt's up to the ark there is a very small gap. A small blackbird got in there while I was out, when I returned I saw the 4 girls attacking something, when I went out to investigate I found vthe had mobbed a young blackbird and basically killed, my kids were not inpressed.

I feed mine or layers mash, that what I was advised by Forsham Cottage Arks.

[karlooben]

i use both and i hardly get any waste from ethier. to keep boredom at bay i hang up cabbages an marrows { but the marrows dont last 1 hour }  

[andreadon]

we have always used mash because we read it in a quite old-fashioned book!
We have two ex-batteries now and were told that they should have mash cos that's what they're used to.  We tried them with pellets mixed in (because we thought they weren't picking up the food well enough and starving!) but they couldn't pick them up!  
But the originals are so greedy that giving them pellets would be a big mistake! they'd end up bigger than the house they live in!

[Mr Chookles]

The only problem I found with mash was that it seems to have a shorter shelf life than pellets,I have mixed it in the past half pellets half mash and they loved it but have now moved onto 2 scoops of pellets to one scoop of mixed corn till my day storage box is full then give it a good mix up,the day box usually last a week (bit of a misnomer there   ) so I tend to mix at the weekends

[kimT]

Lot of waste with mash!
I am in the process of changing my girls over to pellets not only because of the waste but I have a allergy problem with something in the feed.

[Sadgit]

Right... experiment over.. Mash is a total waste of money. Gone through flipping loads of the stuff compared to pellets. Chucks are quieter now due to having a larger run.

Well I had to try but pellets all the way from now on..