Additional Food ideas - mine are spoiled on bread and grapes

[harry marsh]

First timer...
My peacocks (9 or so months old) are spoiled on bread and grapes (I know bread is not very nutritious)

I have plenty of scratch in the front yard that they will occasionally eat, but not enough.

I sometimes mix yogurt and crumble together: they love that
Crumble alone: not so much


I think they're spoiled. Are there some more nutritious foods that would be easier for me? I've heard about cat food?
The yogurt and crumble will mold over after half a day: I'm trying to find something I can more easily leave out for them, as they go about their business. I've tried various seeds with no luck. Scratch bores them...

Thanks for the forum: I'm enjoying this new avenue for reading

 

[Trefoil]

Mealworms are a great treat that are nutritious as well. They love bananas, cat food, peas. Nice looking youngsters. You are talking about treats aren't you? They need game bird food as a staple.

 

[new 2 pfowl]

Hello Harry and...

, and in particular, the Corner where Peas are Extremely Popular!

Some bread is nutritious - I think it depends on the bread. Our gang loves organic sprouted whole wheat bread (time to win the lottery!).

Since your gang seems to free range, don't forget that they are getting a lot of nutritious stuff on their own - bugs, and are you near some water? Maybe fish, frogs, who knows what. So maybe you don't need to worry so much about that.

Have you tried raw hulled sunflower seeds? It's the only seed that these guys will consistently eat, happily.

As far as cat food, if you leave it out it's likely to attract predators (if you have any in your area)...

 

[Roseheart16]

Mine love dried meal worms, they don't leave a single crumb when they're done and those were the only thing I could bribe my one shy one to eat out of my hand with. Mine never seem to be too crazy about anything else except maybe pomegranate berries when I get one that's bitter and sometimes other fruits. Oh and of course long grass and random weeds I'll find and pick for them. They love to fight over the long grass with the guineas and eachother. One piece will go to all of my birds before one finally swallows it

 

[new 2 pfowl]

FYI: Reading Roseheart's comment, I just wanted to mention that our wonderful vet says it isn't good to give cut grass to birds.
Apparently, it can cause crop and intestinal blockages, because they eat it too fast (when they pick it at their own pace, it's much slower).

 

[Roseheart16]

Oh, hmm, I'm glad you mentioned something. I haven't given it to them in a bit sense we just moved and extended their coop but I'll be sure not to give them any cut grass in the future. Thank you!

 

[harry marsh]

I haven't tried hulled sunflower seeds: I would imagine that could get expensive, though

I'm looking for something cheapish, that I can put in piles around the yard


Mine are free rangers, but will stray a few houses in each direction. I'm trying to encourage them to stay closer to home

And yea, there's a lake out back. I'm sure they're getting plenty of bugs. I just want to make sure they're happy at home

I appreciate the feedback

 

[destinduck]

Hope they can eat sunflower seeds in the shell cause I give mine regular birdseed sometimes, I give mine honeydue , cantalope and watermelon sometimes but i pick it up at the end of the day so I dont have aton of fruit flies everywhere.My mom throws cut grass and other things I probably dont want to know about in the pens. Ha ha! Their fav is bananas though by far. Wecome to BYC Harry. Nice pretty and friendly birds you have

 

[new 2 pfowl]

Harry, you are painfully correct about the expense of hulled sunflower seeds.
Our guys love sunflower seed in the shell too!

But they absolutely will not eat bananas.

 

[zazouse]

Pretty peas thanks for sharing .