The FARMA Budgie Special Mix Bird Food is a 1 kg bag of millet-led seed for budgerigars — the practical size if you keep one or two birds and do not want a sack going stale in the cupboard.

Key Features

• Sized for a household rather than an aviary: 1 kg is roughly a month or two for a single budgie
• Millet-led, which is what budgerigars are built to eat — they are small-seed specialists
• Cleaned and screened, so less dust and husk ends up in the bowl
• FARMA's Special grade from its Farma Friends retail range
• Made in Greece by Farma Friends, a pet-food maker near Thessaloniki that has been blending seed since 1997

Feeding

• One to two level teaspoons per budgie per day. Measure it rather than keeping the bowl topped up
• Tip the husks off the top of the bowl every day — a bowl that looks full is usually nothing but empty shells
• Add fresh greens, a cuttlebone or mineral block, and grit
• Clean, fresh water at all times, changed at least daily in hot weather

Good To Know

• Budgies fed on seed alone commonly end up overweight and short of calcium, iodine and vitamin A
• Change a bird's diet gradually. Budgies will refuse unfamiliar food stubbornly, so blend the new seed in over a week or more
• Keep the bag sealed once opened. Seed in a warm cupboard attracts pantry moth
• Millet sprays and greens are cheap ways to add the variety a seed mix on its own lacks
• Birds hide illness until very late. One sitting fluffed up on the floor of the cage is an emergency, not an off day