During my 25 years breeding and exhibiting exhibition Budgerigars I have tried numerous different breeding, rearing and conditioning foods, but now feel I have found one of the best systems available of offering a top quality soft-food along with an acceptable level of daily additives. All prepared in the minimum of time with very little additional energy costs.

During the breeding season the fluid intake of the adult birds varies quite drastically from day to day, depending on temperature and the number of chicks being fed in the nest. Adding your vitamin & mineral supplements, as well as other additives such as a probiotic to the drinking water will consequently give a very varied daily dosage at this time of the year.

I have experimented with several ways of simplifying this over recent years and I will now explain how I prepare and offer all of these ingredients to my birds during the breeding season.

My first ingredient is Growrite, one of the best soft-foods available at the present time. With a 19% protein level, Growrite contains the optimum protein level for fast growing Budgerigar chicks. I use 500 grams of Growrite per day which I add to an equal weight of freshly chopped carrot prepared in a food processor with the carrot juice producing sufficient moisture to give a ready to eat mix. To this I now add my three additives, Entrodex, one of the modern probiotic supplements that help to balance the friendly bacteria in the birds stomach, Ascorbivite, a Vitamin C supplement and MVS30 a vitamin and mineral supplement containing 30 different beneficial elements. I add one heaped teaspoon (approximately 7 grams) of each product to the 1 kilo of moist soft-food daily. Leave to stand for 30 minutes before feeding to the birds to allow the friendly bacteria to become active.

After standing for the specified time, I feed to all my cages, allowing one heaped tablespoon of the mixture to each pair, and two heaped tablespoons to each stock cage containing weaned youngsters. A one kilo daily mix usually leaves enough to give each of my two flights a small quantity, which helps to keep the adult stock accustomed to the softfood.

VYDEX produce two different flavoured Growrite Soft-foods. The original Aniseed flavour and the new style Almond flavour. Personally I find the Almond flavour is more acceptable to my Budgerigars, possibly due to its sweeter taste, but if mixed with either carrot or sweet corn, I doubt if there would be much difference between the two.

Since I first adopted this system, my breeding results have improved drastically, and the number of chicks that die at a few days old has been cut back to just a few per year. This is almost certainly due to the day old chicks getting a friendly and beneficial bacteria with there first crop milk feed. It stands to reason that the more chicks that you rear to independence from your selected breeding pairs, then the more quality youngsters that are going to appear in the stock cages later in the year.

I have reared just over 200 chicks to independence during 2000 breeding season, a very acceptable return from my 30 breeding cages.

The only drawback to using this method of preparing softfood, is that white faced birds, when feeding carrot develop a stained area around the beak. The photograph of the Spangle Grey on the opening page shows this quite clearly as it was taken whilst he was in the breeding cage feeding chicks. I have found that this staining quickly fades once the birds are sprayed regularly in preparation for the show bench, the only problem being for fanciers who show birds whilst they are still breeding. I personally don’t show breeding birds, feeling they have enough stress with their nest box duties.  However I do withhold softfood containing carrot from the whole show team for a week prior to any show, but give a small quantity to all birds returning from an exhibition as soon as they are returned to their stock cage.

I have found the quality of egg shell to be much improved since I introduced MVS30 to the diet. The calcium included within MVS30 is quickly and easily absorbed by the laying hen, reducing problems of poor shell quality.

GROWRITE - my first choice rearing & conditioning food.

Small fresh carrot's. A 12.5 kg sack is an economical way of buying this product. Ensure the surplus carrot is kept in a refrigerator or it will quickly deteriorate.

Measure out the required quantity. I use 500 grms (1lb 2 ounces) of fresh carrot's and GROWRITE per day during the breeding season.

The carrot is chopped in a household food processor and then mixed with an equal weight of GROWRITE softfood.

Entrodex, Ascorbivite & MVS 30 are all added to the softfood daily during the breeding season.