After five months of procrastinating, I have finally written my big grit article: http://www.littlefeatheredbuddies.com/i ... -grit.html When you see how long it is you'll know why I put it off lol. If anyone spots a problem, please let me know, because I haven't tried to check every link - there are dozens of them!

It's great !! You worked so hard on it, thank you !!

Btw, love your grammar

for such a clear article... I really enjoyed the read and its clear concise..
Bet it took a while to put together... your glad you did and finished it now.... well-done.

Uhh... did you seriously write all that yourself? That's far more than my autobiographical incident essay I wrote for sophomore year, and that had to be 5 pages long. Do you mind if I print this out and give it to my bird shop? They don't know what to tell their customers when it comes to this.

Sure, you can print it out and give it away. Just make sure it shows the address for the website and/or forum.

I put off writing it for 5 months because I knew it was going to be a pain in the butt lol. I had lots of material and no real idea of how to organize it. But I think the end result works fairly well - a reasonably simple explanation up front, and the piles of nitpicky detail at the end where people don't have to read it unless they actually want to.

Wow, that is really interesting info! When I first bought Cloud (my first budgie), I bought some Kaytee "Hi-Cal Grit" because I was told she needed grit (old school version advice). Then I went online and learned a bunch of stuff and stopped sprinkling the grit in her cage (new school advice) but now I'm glad I kept it so I can start offering it again to the budgies and Coyote (new-new school advice!).

My question is, is this grit appropriate? It's ingredients list Granit grit, oyster shell, calcium carbonate, dicalcium phosphate, salt, charcoal, mineral oil, orange oil, zinc oxide, and so on. Is this different/better than the cuttle bone/mineral block I have in both cages? And when offering grit, I had originally just sprinkled a bit on the cage floor since I prefer a layer of paper towels on the cage floor instead of cage wire... so it seems like this would be more "forage-y" but would it be better to mix it with the dry food? Also, if they are getting all these minerals from this grit, will they instinctively know to back off from the mineral block or could they overdo it if they get particularly chew-y and decide the mineral block is the chew toy of the day?

Thanks again for the well written, well thought out common sense approach to this whole grit thing.

The Kaytee grit is fine. It provides a lot of the same minerals as other sources along with a few extras. Cuttlebone is calcium carbonate and that's usually the main ingredient in mineral blocks too, although they often contain other ingredients. Oyster shell is calcium carbonate too. It's the most plentiful form of calcium on earth and it's what wild birds would mostly eat.

I use the Kaytee hi-cal grit with my birds, along with Higgins snack attack mineral grit. The Higgins seems to be all soluble grit meaning it's a source of mineral nutrients, while the Kaytee is a mix of soluble and insoluble. The granite is insoluble - it doesn't provide nutrients but it helps with food grinding.

In general birds seem to be pretty smart about not consuming excessive amounts of calcium and minerals. They'll pick and choose what they want from the grit mix too, not everything gets eaten. When they DO decide that the cuttlebone is the chew toy of the day, they don't eat the whole thing, they just create a big pile of cuttlebone powder on the cage floor.

You can serve it any way you like. I put it in a small bowl that's kept in a small cage that's not actively occupied by anyone - it sits out in the bird room basically as a place to sit or play while they're at liberty and it's occasionally used as a sleep cage. So they have frequent access to grit if they want it, but they do have to seek it out - it's not sitting right in front of them all the time.

So my setup is different and my birds spend more time in their cages (which will change once Syrus, my geriatric cat departs this plane of existence), would you suggest I keep a little dish in their cages with some grit all the time or just once a week or so?

Thank you for taking the time to answer all my questions, it's appreciated.

Oh and Coyote says Hi! He just went to bed in his little sleep cage, which he has grown to love since I hang a bit of millet in it. He hops in eagerly every night now when at first he was a little nervous about it. He's such a little delight.

Millet is a wonderful attitude changer lol.

You could put a small amount of grit in a bowl and leave it in the cage, but you don't have to be in any particular hurry to refill it if they empty it out quickly. My flock eats the stuff they like pretty quickly but I only add more once every week or two. So they won't necessarily get a grit snack at the exact moment they want it. They've got cuttlebone and mineral block so they can chew on those any time they want, and they have the ability to retain the insoluble grit that they've already consumed.

I use very little grit.. then only for my Budgie...
actually I've never seen him eat any
think I'll remove the dish.