How do you deal with wasting food?

[Cali&Pilot]

Some of my female budgies do the same thing- toss the seed and other food out and onto the floor of the cage. Females do this much more often than males. It's very frustrating because it's very common and very normal but very wasteful. I gave my girls a tube dispenser for seed to make it harder to toss it but I also feed them fresh cooked "chop" (a mixture of chopped vegetables and cooked grains) every day and I need to serve the chop in a dish. They love to eat the chop but half of it gets tossed on the floor no matter what I do. I also give them a large leaf of Romsine lettuce where day that they absolute love but they manage to shred and waste a lot of it.
I try not to let all the wasted food bother me. Birds are all messy eaters.

good to know

 

[ChrisH123]

I feel like with birds waste is inevitable. It's part of their nature to drop food and seeds (in nature it provides seed dispersal and puts nutrients back into the soil). I try not to over feed chop which cuts down on waste a little. But as long as their eating a big variety, I just consider it just part of the deal.

 

[DonnaBudgie]

What bothers me is my cage of four female budgies, two of which mate with each other and lay eggs (!!!), toss all their food on the cage floor by kicking with their feet. Chop, seed, everything, and won't eat off the floor. I like to collect food waste out of their bowls and feed it to the outdoor birds but I can't do it when it's mixed with poop on cage paper. The boy's cage budgies never do this, nor do my other budgies. As it is, there's at last a full cup of wasted food a day except for those sloppy girls so there's a lot of wasted food. But, I love my wasteful kids anyway and it's not that expensive. I estimate that I spend at least $75 a month on food for my 19 budgies, including chop, other fresh veggies, seed (I mix my own from white and red millet, oats, and sometimes other goodies like hemp seed, chia seed, and chopped sunflower meats), and occasionally spray millet, but it's horribly messy and allergenic.

 

[ChrisH123]

What bothers me is my cage of four female budgies, two of which mate with each other and lay eggs (!!!), toss all their food on the cage floor by kicking with their feet. Chop, seed, everything, and won't eat off the floor. I like to collect food waste out of their bowls and feed it to the outdoor birds but I can't do it when it's mixed with poop on cage paper. The boy's cage budgies never do this, nor do my other budgies. As it is, there's at last a full cup of wasted food a day except for those sloppy girls so there's a lot of wasted food. But, I love my wasteful kids anyway and it's not that expensive. I estimate that I spend at least $75 a month on food for my 19 budgies, including chop, other fresh veggies, seed (I mix my own from white and red millet, oats, and sometimes other goodies like hemp seed, chia seed, and chopped sunflower meats), and occasionally spray millet, but it's horribly messy and allergenic.

Yikes! That's a big food budget. Do you have one of those enclosed acrylic feeders? They really help cut down on the mess from the birds tossing seeds as well as when they fly and stir it up.

 

[JjEjFjF]

I feed the waste to the wild birds outside. It feels as if nothing is being wasted.

 

[DonnaBudgie]

Yikes! That's a big food budget. Do you have one of those enclosed acrylic feeders? They really help cut down on the mess from the birds tossing seeds as well as when they fly and stir it up.

I do but they kick it out with their feet. I have a tube dispenser but the manage to pull it out with their beaks. They do it on purpose but not sure what the purpose is.

 

[DonnaBudgie]

I wouldn't call it a budget- it more like takes on a life of its own. About $30 a month is just for fresh organic veggies. I give out 5 large romaine leaves a day so that adds up. They only like the darker green outer leaves and we eat the inner ones.

 

[Gemma Sarracenia]

How do you deal with wasting pellet and seeds? I don't want to be scrooge but when I see the amount of good food that falls from the beak (whole seeds, pellet) I watch at Wizard and say "you waste the food just because you don't pay for it ".
Seriously, is there a trick that an amateur like me just doesn't know, or I need to give up ad throw away the food?

I dump it in my pollinator garden to feed the bugs. Only because currently I don't have a pillbug colony, but soon they'll get some of it as well. Then the pillbugs feed my frog, and used substrate from both cages goes into the oven to be sanitized, then mixed into my gardening soil, that I use in two indoor window boxes. The window boxes grow carrots, dandelion, wild violet, chickweed, beets, peas, and brassicas, whatever is on hand. I harvest them until the whole box looks sickly from frequent harvesting, then it gets sanitized and renewed for the next round. So, the unused pellets end up feeding the plants that feed the birds (and me).

Anyone have any Montenegro pillbugs on hand, or do I gotta catch wild ones and try to raise the prettiest ones again?