Feeding

Live food is only given to certain species that I keep, Things like Canaries Goldfinches, Redpolls, Greenfinches and linnets are not fed live food as this is not necessary, that said some species would eat it if offered, but as mealworms  are so expensive I just feed them to species that require them for example my Hawfinches, Chaffinches, Bullfinches and Bramblefinches.

Another favourite is wax worms but these are more expensive they are given as an alternate to add variety.

vitamins and calcium powders are added to  live food before feeding.

Waxmoth Larvae

Wax worms are very high in both protein and fat.  They are highly nutritious and can be fed in addition to, or instead of, mealworms. 

Mealworms

You can also dust the mealworms with a vitamin & Calcium  supplement prior to feeding them to your pet as this will increase their nutritional value and provide additional calcium.

Mealworms are made up of approximately 50% crude protein and 40% fat making them an excellent source of nutrition for many birds,

Bigger worms for bigger birds

I prefer to buy the mixed sizes all together in the same batch, (called mixer mealworms) as I keep a variety of different size birds

Maggots

These are very cheap to buy compared to other livefood, the down side is that they turn very quickly especially in the hot summer unless refrigerated It is very important to clean the maggots before use, this is done by running them in clean sawdust for a few days until the black line in the maggot disappears,

Some companies now sell frozen maggots that are already to feed and of course they can be stored easily in a freezer, and just enough can be thawed out as they are required.

Fruit fly Cultures

These are very easy to make use a plastic tub and add soft over ripe fruit like bananas peaches, grapes, tomatoes etc, cover this tub with fine mesh so the birds cannot get to the fruit place one of these in each aviary in warm summer weather after 3 or 4 days you will start to see very small knat like flies, every time you knock the tub these small flies will fly out of the plastic box and your birds will soon start to collect them, very useful for babies that have just chipped, these flies are small enough for the parents to feed to the young.