Vitamin Enriched Seed

If you use a mixture with the vitamin coated canary seed I still suggest you add vitamin supplements to your canary's water a at least once a week. This will help insure that he is getting all the vitamins he needs from his "caged" diet.

I prefer to use a water soluble vitamin like Vita Flight. It has 13 essential vitamins in fruit flavored powder. Just add to drinking water once or twice a week to insure optimal canary health. Regular use of Vita Flight can contribute to a healthy energetic bird that is more resistant to disease.

With bird seed as a staple for your bird you will need to offer supplemental foods on a regular basis...most importantly greens (such as broccoli and sprouts) and egg biscuits for protein.

Discover canary treats that are good for your pet bird and what foods can kill him ...CLICK HERE.

Providing vitamin coated canary seed plus a vitamin supplement in his water or canary food, and treats on the side is a great way to go...

...you know you're providing a good nutritional foundation with the vitamin coated seed and supplements, and the "snack" foods will be a welcome change in his diet. Give him plenty of variety in his foods to keep him healthy and in good spirits.

***Low Maintenance Tip***
If you are really interested in keeping this as low maintenance as possible try...

Nutriphase Gold not only has a good source of pellets but they add in nuts, dried fruits, veggies, and seed. It's a wonderful low maintenance way to go.

Your canary may not like everything that is in this mixture but at least he has a variety to keep him happy and SINGING!

If you want to use strictly pellets and your canary has been eating seed up until now you'll want to gradually change over. Give his digestive system time to get used to the new diet.

Start with a small amount of pellets mixed in with his canary seed and gradually give a little more each day over about a week. Watch your canary closely to see if he is partaking of the pellets. He may not recognize them as canary food right away and if you stop giving seed he could starve himself to death.

If your pet bird shows no interest in the pellets try splashing a small amount lightly with some apple juice to coax them into trying a taste. Discard these "apple juice pellets" after about 12 hours. Who knows what kind of nasties grow on warm moist apple juice!

Once you have him switched over you can continue mixing the pellets with his seed or...

As long as you've got all that canary seed left over plant it in a container for growing canary grass...Keep it moist and warm, with plenty of light and in a couple weeks whack off the top inch or so and feed that to your bird. He'll love it and he'll love you for it!

Soaking or boiling your seed is a pleasurable treat that canaries love. See Soft Seed.

More helpful tips on canary seed and other foods are at your finger tips with Canary Tips! E-zine.

Canary Tips! is full of usable value-packed information that will keep your canary SINGING!

Sign up now...It's FREE...

...that's right, a pile of crap!

Your canary doesn't want crap in his canary seed or water but unfortunately he's not smart enough to go in the corner. Instinct tells him to crap wherever and whenever he likes...

...Must be nice.

The best seed dish is wide and shallow like these easy-to-clean plastic cups that hang from cage bars with attached wire hangers... Click Here.

For best results it should be filled every day with one day’s rations of seed. This is the high maintenance method.

You can put several days’ worth of seed in a deep dish but what happens is...

As your canary eats he hulls his seeds, the hulls fall back into the dish and cover up the seed. Now your pet bird is wondering where all the seed went...its covered in hulls!

You'll either want to use a wide shallow dish and put a days ration or two of canary seed in it every day or...if you use a deep dish you'll want to carry the dish outside and gently blow the hulls off the top of the canary seed every day. You won't have to add any seed for several days but you'll want to keep those hulls off the top.

If your canary can't see the seed for the hulls he'll scratch around inside the dish scattering seed and hulls everywhere...Now you've got a mess to clean up! OK, OK its not as bad as it sounds but he can get pretty messy.

One way to cut way down on scattering of canary seed and other foods is to use a raised back dish . It helps prevent your canary from scattering canary food to the outside of the cage. Most of it will bounce off the high back and then back into the dish.

Another way to prevent canary seed from escaping the cage is to use a seed guard. A canary seed guard wraps around the bottom of the cage and creates a curtain of sorts. Very useful.

Between the high back feeder and the canary seed guard things should stay pretty clean.

***Low Maintenance Tip***
Use automatic feeders. I love these. They really cut down on cleaning and feeding time. The bigger the better as far as I'm concerned.

You can even use a standard glass watering tube if you want. Just put canary seed in it instead of water. Presto...an automatic feeder! Just make sure you blow the empty hulls off the top of the canary seed often.Also make sure the extra seed is feeding through the outlet.
***Low Maintenance Tip***

There are some other great alternatives to the plain old seed dish. Stainless steel is easy to clean and will not absorb bacteria like plastic might.