Top Foods That Will Make Your Birds Breed Fast - Best Kept Secrets Revealed!

Top Foods That Will Make Your Birds Breed Fast - Best Kept Secrets Revealed!

What Type Of Food Improves Breeding Activity In Sun Conures, Other Parrots and Cockatiels?

What feed should I give to make my birds breed fast?

One of the important questions that I was preoccupied with when I was starting to breed my Sun Conures, cockatiels and other parrots including Senegal Parrots is 

“What type of food will increase the breeding activity of birds?”

I found myself scouring the web making countless searches for hours together with the following bird feed and breeding related questions:

What feed should I give to make my sun conures breed fast?

What food will make my parrots lay more eggs?

What feed will increase the clutch size of my Senegal parrots?

What kind of food will get healthy cockatiel chicks? 

The list of questions simply extends.

Other breeders and experts may have different opinions and views on what I am presenting here. These are just my personal observations and learnings that have proven to be helpful in improving my birds’ breeding behavior. You are free to try them at your own risk and use your discretion taking into account your birds general health and well being.

The Magic Of Vitamin E in Birds Reproduction

It is no secret that Vitamin E plays a very important role in your bird’s breeding behavior. It is commonly known as the reproductive vitamin. Your birds need good supply of vitamin E to boost the breeding behavior and to increase the hormones that trigger breeding behavior. Vitamin E has other far reaching benefits on your bird’s health and well being besides triggering the reproductive hormones which we are not going to get into. I would rather prefer to have a detailed discussion on the complete list of benefits of Vitamin E in birds in another post while limiting this post to the discussion on foods that are important for your birds reproductive health.

Now that you know that Vitamin E is important in improving your bird’s breeding behavior, you will have to start looking at the rich sources of vitamin E that you can use. Here are few good, rather very good sources of vitamin E for your birds.

Sunflower Seeds – Sunflower seeds have very high Vitamin E content. You could already been feeding your birds with sun flower seeds regularly, if your birds feed includes sun flower seeds then continue with it. One of the disadvantages of using sunflower seeds is that it has very high fat content too that can make your bird obese. Obese or fat birds can become lethargic and could show very little interest in breeding. You will therefore need to make sure that you train your birds to take other foods as well so that your entire bird diet is not limited just to sunflower seeds.

Wheat Germ Oil – Wheat Germ Oil in fact contains the highest content of vitamin E. I have not tried wheat germ oil myself personally. Instead of giving my birds wheat germ oil, I give soaked, germinated wheat. Actually, wheat germ oil is extracted from wheat germs. My Senegal parrots love germinated wheat and they do have a very good effect on my birds. I am hoping to try wheat germ oil soon and when I do, I will hopefully post the results here in this blog. If you do not have access to wheat germ oil readily, you can try soaked, germinated wheat. Just a quick warning, if you have chicks, do not feed soaked wheat or germinated wheat to your birds as it makes your chicks highly prone to yeast infections and it is fatal. I have lost many cockatiel chicks in the past making this mistake. If you are giving soaked wheat, limit its supply only up to hatching of the chicks. You can resume giving soaked wheat, when the chicks come out of the nest box. Here I would like to mention this is my personal view based on my personal experience.

Vimeral Liquid Vitamin Supplement – This again is a very good source of Vitamin E the reproductive vitamin in birds. Vitamin E concentration in Vimeral is 48 mg per ml.

Ground Nuts – Ground nuts or pea nuts are another good source of vitamin E. I do not use ground nuts regularly with my birds but just use them occasionally. I am yet to experiment with ground nuts diet.

I have just pointed you the direction in which you are required to travel, you can explore other healthy Vitamin E options for your birds. Surf around, make searches online for nutritional facts and vitamin E sources, you are likely to come across many other sources that you can safely use for your birds. Just make sure to cross check the facts with multiple sources just to ensure that the information that you have at hand is correct because you are dealing with lives here and you don’t want to make mistakes.

Fresh Food – Includes Greens, Vegetables, Fruits and Corn

When I was scouring the web like you were doing with the intention of finding the best breeding diets for birds, one thing that every breeder online said is to include plenty of fresh food to the birds. So I started bringing in as much variety as possible in this regard. Here are few things that I include in my birds diet, which has kind of helped in triggering and sustaining the breeding behavior of my birds. With each food, I have indicated how frequently I use these food items and you can decide how frequently you want to give your birds with these fresh foods depending on what your birds like. Just make sure that you bring in good variety in your birds food.

Carrots – Grated – I have also read that too much of carrots is not good for the birds because it obstructs calcium absorption in birds as carrots contain oxalic acid which combines with calcium to form calcium oxalate preventing calcium in the other food from reaching the bird. Do a bit of reading on your own in this regard before you make your conclusions. I include carrots quite regularly but as it is a good source of vitamin A.

Greens – Chopped – I include greens at least for two days per week. It is often two subsequent days as I feed the birds with greens when they are still fresh when I get from the market. I do not store greens in the fridge. It is recommended that you do not given anything that comes out of the fridge and I religiously follow this. I do not store the vegetables or greens that I feed my birds in fridge. To keep the greens fresh, I wrap a wet cloth around the greens and keep them wet. It keeps my greens fresh for a maximum of three days. When you are giving greens make sure to wash them thoroughly as they may have been sprayed with pesticides that are not just toxic but they can prove to be fatal. The same applies to other vegetables that you are giving your birds. You cannot afford to make mistakes here and there is no room for laziness whatsoever.

Beetroot – grated. I give beetroots on alternate weeks.

Capsicum – chopped. Capsicum is a rich source of vitamin C and it helps your birds immunity. My parrots love capsicum. My sun conures do not prefer Capsicum so much but they do not hesitate to try though.

Fresh Corn Cobs – Depending on the availability, I give them half a cob to full cob daily. There are also days where my birds go without corn for days together. I just go with the availability of corn in the local market.

Chickpeas - Soaked – A very rich source of protein. I feed my birds almost on alternate days with soaked chickpeas. It is soaked at least for 24 hours. I make sure that I feed my birds with soaked chickpeas daily when I have chicks. It is a very good soft food option when you have chicks. It is even better if you can germinate chickpeas.

Guava – Not too frequently. Depending on the availability. My parrots love them though. As the breeding season approaches, I try to increase the frequency at which I give guava.

Musambi – Not too frequently. Once in a week or ten days.

Sugar Cane – Chopped – Seasonal. I don’t get a regular supply of sugar cane round the year. I give sugar cane from November to February or March. My birds love sugar cane too.