What is in your own mix of pigeon feed? What is the cost (location to purchase), ingredients, and crude protein percentages?
I plan to actually tailor a better mix later after I order in some of the more 'exotic' seeds that I was unable to source locally... Since the lost pigeon literally landed in our laps and I needed food ASAP that day I had to use what was local and easy to obtain that day... I picked up a higher protein higher end all whole grain wild bird feed that was void of corn and 'grain byproducts' or any other type of pellets at the store (***Edit I located the bag, it was Pennington Select Birder's Blend) then I hit up a grocery store an picked up some popcorn, lentils, wild rice, dried whole peas and barley... I had whole oats and some Diamond V XP food supplement on hand...
I did the math based on what I had on hand using the entire bag of wild bird feed as a base and using as much of the rest of the other stuff as I could to come up with a give or take 15% protein mix and then dusted it with some Diamond V XP...
Sorry for not being more specific on the actual blend but I honestly didn't pay that much attention... I started the math based on dumping all the stuff I had together then reworked it by subtracting a bit of the lower protein or higher protein individual grains/beans until the protein hit that 15% sweet spot I was aiming for...
The pigeon is given a tablespoon of feed in the morning and a tablespoon in the evening, he generally eats everything but the peas, lentils and popcorn immediately, but by the next feeding time he will almost always eat those initially neglected items as well... Thus the need for rationing to force him to eat everything, trust me I would much rather just fill up a bowl and let him go to town, but it's clear this would be a waste...
Own and BTW we for clarification we didn't 'steal' the pigeon, he was banded and we tracked down his owner, he was on his first race from Indiana to Michigan a due North race, but this guy went due North west and ended up on the other side of Lake Michigan at our place in Illinois... When I contacted the owner he said that out of the 300+ pigeons in the race, less than 100 actually made it home so a bad day for their club... Since they won't fly across the lake and chances are slim he would ever figure out how to get home, the original owner asked us if we could adopt him...
***With the edit and finding the bird seed I started with I can pretty much recreate the recipe I used...
The bag of bird food contained:
White Proso Millet, Sunflower Seed, Safflower Seed, Wheat, Milo, Calcium Carbonate, Vitamin A Supplement, Vitamin D-3 Supplement, Potassium Iodide, Vegetable Oil
It was a 7 pound bag that started at 10% min. protein
I added (note I just quickly searched out the protein values, they might be off as I didn't double check them for this post)
1/2 lb popcorn @ 11%
2 lbs lentils @ 26%
1 lb wild rice @ 15%
2 lbs dried whole peas @ 25%
1 lb barley @ 10%
1/2 lb whole oats @14%
and a dusting of Diamond V XP food supplement...
That puts me at about 15% protein overall, and fits my recollection of what I mixed in...
