The following email was received in response to the Canary Seed article. Thanks Frank for your input.
Hi there,
I just surfed into your site this evening. I don’t even have budgies, yet, but I’ve been investigating the possibilities. In fact, yesterday, I was at the home of one of the top U.S. breeders and judges checking out his stud. I noticed your article on separating the seeds for your birds—one of the more intelligent things I’ve seen in many of the pages I’ve checked out. I’d planned to do something similar anyway. I’ve bred and raised pigeons for almost 35 years now and I know full well that dietary needs of the animals change as their breeding or molting or just sitting around changes. I was lucky enough to visit Australia about ten years ago when I judged the National Pigeon show there and it sure didn’t look like wild budgies ate just "canary" seed or a high protein diet all the time. Actually, I’m not a medical guy, but I am a biologist. I know that too high a protein diet in pigeons can cause gout; in people, I’ve been told it can cause ketosis ( a high level of ketones - from the breakdown of the proteins - in the blood) This can apparently lead to some very severe kidney damage, and in fact seems to have done so in some people who are trying to use "all protein" diets to lose weight.
Anyway, back to your site to check out some more stuff. Happy New Year.
Frank Mosca
http://www.oocities.org/Athens/Acropolis/6450