Method. Place into a bowl 300 grams of Aldersons meal which has been mixed with 100 grams of powdered ferret food. The ferret food is in a large pelleted form when purchased so it needs to be ground down to a powder before use in egg food I use my Kenwood Classic liquidiser for this. The two eggs are boiled for 11 minutes to ensure that any salmonella bacteria are killed. They are then placed in my Kenwood Classic liquidiser with 175 mls of the water they were boiled in and turned into an eggy liquid and poured onto the Aldersons meal and ferret food. A further 175 mls of water is poured into the food processor which is then activated to gather up any of the remaining egg and this watery mixture is also poured onto the Aldersons meal and ferret food. All the ingredients are mixed with a desert spoon until it turns into a crumbly moist mixture. Just a few words of caution if you use too much water you obtain a mushy mess that your birds will not eat. Just experiment with the amount of water used until you are happy with the mixture you produce. The above quantities produce a large amount of egg food so it may be preferable to halve all the ingredients when you first try this method. Budgerigars are normally fed on a mixture of canary seed and mixed millets, there is quite a large range of mixtures and the leading suppliers will have at least 8 varieties, generally the mixtures


22 BIRD SCENE


with the highest percentage of canary seed will be the most expensive. With regard to the experiment of


providing ordinary Budgerigar nest boxes and parakeet style boxes the pair that successfully bred used the ordinary box and the other three hens selected the parakeet boxes so at present it seems that the ordinary box has produced the best results even though only one of the four pairs selected this style. The results from very small scale ‘experiments’ are always difficult to interpret but as I will do the same next year and add the results to those achieved so far I should have a larger set of statistics to work with at the end of the 2015 season. This series has given me great pleasure to write and I do hope that you have enjoyed this article. I am far from an experienced Budgerigar breeder but perhaps that is why I have found it relatively easy to write ‘Budgerigars for Beginners’ as I have no strong allegiance to any of the three types. Please do consider either starting to keep these highly entertaining and exceedingly friendly birds. They are a good species to start with or a great addition to an existing collection especially if kept in an outside aviary. Do ensure that they have access to the inside if the weather turns cold and wet. Remember to place a bench close to the flight so that you can enjoy their antics as you spend an hour or so watching the Budgerigars.


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