FEATURE
captivity often do not take live food very well. If you do give your birds live food it should be mealworms, mealworm beetles or wax moth larvae. Please remember though to only give your birds live foods that feed on plants or dried bran etc. Live food such as fisherman’s maggots are fed on meat which can be deadly for our birds as it can contain harmful bacteria. However, the main difficulty with Ruppell’s is the fact that peanuts in their shells is a big problem. Ruppell’s will often eat the peanut shell and throw away the actual nut. Peanuts in their shells stored in a damp situation can develop a mould inside the shell that is an aflatoxin. If this happens the
peanuts are classed as unfit for human consumption but the government will pass them for animal/bird feeds. Consequently these contaminated nuts often find their way into various bird foods and seed mixes. Aflatoxins develop very quickly in warm but damp situations and can be a deadly killer for our birds if eaten. For most birds this is not a problem because the aflatoxin takes a lot longer to actually get on the nut, but our Ruppell’s very often eat only the shell. This is a very important point for all Ruppell’s keepers to know about and to make sure our birds avoid by not giving them peanuts in their shells. Together with seed mixes they must have a variety of vegetables and fruit which can be fresh or from frozen. I give my birds frozen mixed vegetables and sweet corn plus any fruit that is available at the time of year. They all have their favourites and this will vary throughout the year. Another good thing to do is to give the birds fresh fruit tree or willow tree branches. They will then spend a lot of their time chewing and eating the fresh bark which (if fresh) will contain biotin. Biotin contains a lot of nutrients that are good for your birds and when breeding and feeding young it will help them to get their biggest possible size from the genetic make up of their parents. It must be noted that being basically a woodland bird, in the wild they probably eat and/or chew the bark of trees quite a lot to get at insects/ larvae and to personalize nest holes etc. Remember chewing tree bark is a
BIRD SCENE 31
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