Some advice on introducing natural foods?

[DRattmann]

I've been looking at the lists of food with nutritional information and have made a little shopping list for today. Hopefully I'll be able to get hold of everything.

Any tips? I'm going to buy:

- Dandelion (if I can find it somewhere!)
- Parsley
- I already have millet for my budgies and the boys love it
- Sunflower seeds
- Hazelnuts

I'm trying to get mostly things which won't go bad quickly, since I only have two degus so not a lot of each things will be used at once.

I'd also like to get rose petals or some other flower-type things but I'm not sure what's the best to get or where to get them from. Also, do I need to do anything with them? For example, if I collected rose petals from my garden, what would I need to do to make sure it's safe for them?

Thanks for your help. I'm still feeding them degu pellets and lots of Timothy hay but I want to start introducing them to more natural food. I'm hoping to develop the natural diet once I start college because I'm working 45 hours a week right now so it's hard to find the time and energy to make a completely natural diet! Especially when I have so much to learn to be able to!

For now I'm just trying to spice things up a bit, encourage them to forage and to try new foods.

[moletteuk]

You might find some smaller bags of dandelion type herb mixes in local pet shops or Pets@home, or you can get a bag of dandelion and green oats from Wilkinson. You can get parsley stalks with mint I think at Pets@home. I find it's cheaper to buy the bigger JR Farm bags from Zooplus though. Likewise you might find small bags with flowers in locally, but JR Farm Chinchilla Flower Garden is a really big bag, and it was on offer I think the other day at Zooplus.

Roses from the garden are fine unless they have been sprayed with insecticide or fungicide, which is actually very common because they are prone to greenfly and blackspot. Marigold (calendula) and nasturtiums are good choices for growing in the garden for goos. They may eat flowers fresh, or they may prefer them dried out, they store better dried out anyway.

Sunflower seeds are fine, but a mixed bag of seed, like canary seed or budgie seed is good, (as long is it doesn't have little yellow egg pieces in) because you can scatter feed this and it isn't so fatty as just sunflower seeds.

Starting out with natural things as extras is a great way to do it, I'm sure you and the goos will really enjoy it

[dusty]

I think it depends on your exact location as to whether you can buy these things. Our nearest pets at home is about 15 miles away and costs about £10 for return travel. I kinda live in the back of beyond and our local pet store is not all that clued up on degu friendly products etc..
I am lucky enough to have a garden that currently resembles a forest, full of wild flowers and grasses (although I don't know what to do with these yet) and a plum tree that I might prune a bit to try out on them.

If you can't find any dandelion we did find something that resembles cigars made of dried grass and dandelion which they seem to fight over. Its Burgess EXCEL nature snacks. I have picked fresh dandelions from the garden and dried them on the windowsill - they like that I would normally say pick fresh from a local park etc, but you might wanna make sure there are no council staff about incase its goes against the forraging laws!!! although we have done this for 40 years for our tortoises without a problem.

Just a quick added question - does it matter what type of roses they are as there are loads of wild in the fields and hedgerows here

[moletteuk]

Yes, with the cost of transport, the free delivery at Zooplus when you spend £19 and similar deals on other websites, seems like a good deal! £5 delivery at some websites seems expensive sometimes, but £5 doesn't get you far in the car these days.

I wouldn't worry too much about getting caught picking things, I think if you smile and explain what you are doing, people will at worst ask you stop, and more than likely won't mind.

All types of roses are fine. All normal grasses are fine too as long as they haven't been treated or sprayed like lawns are. Try offering some grass fresh or dried out. Just ask about other wild plants and flowers. Common things like dock, ground elder, nettles, cleavers, garlic mustard, plantain, cow parsley (be careful with ID) are all good. I'm sure they would love a plum tree branch Hawthorn is good too as you have access to hedgerows, there is fresh growth atm that only has soft thorns.

[DRattmann]

I think I should be able to get grass and rose petals easily since we have roses in our garden and we don't treat them or our grass with anything. As far as bird seed mixes are concerned, are things like trill fine? I'll have to check if it has egg protein but is that the sort of seed mix you mean?

When I'm laying out stuff for them to forage for, how much would you say they should be given?

[Karma]

Keep at it for adding natural items - My guys snubbed everything for 2 full weeks and now they are slowly starting to try them.

I'm not sure what you mean by trill bird seed .... The mixtures you are looking for will normally be the basic, cheaper ones. You don't want anything with added vitamin supplements/pellets/egg pieces. It should only be seeds. I find finch/canary mixes tend to be better since most budgie/cockatiel have other things added to them. They will be a mix of different millet, canary grass seeds, niger, canola etc.

[moletteuk]

Trill is a brand name, and yes, that's the type of thing I mean As Karma says, just look for something with a good mix of seeds with no additives.