To get back to Baruch's question, I add sunflower, safflower, hemp and buckwheat to the parakeet mix. Seed mixes for birds don't aim for nutritional balance - that's just the way it is and the way it has always been. So you don't have to worry about the nutritional balance in the seed mix, and aim for balance through the other foods that you offer.

Sunflower is easy to get at grocery stores but the other stuff can be harder to find. Fortunately for me there's a feed store in Phoenix that specializes in pet bird seed. They come to the Tucson bird mart twice a year and I can stock up then. Their prices are great at the bird mart but I have no idea what they'd charge to ship it. This is their website: http://www.millerfeed.net/

It's possible to find other seeds online. Hemp is popular with the alt med crowd, and finding hemp with the shells off for humans is easier than finding it with the shells on for birds. So with that seed you have to make sure that the site you're looking at is talking about the type you want.

Omg hulled hemp seeds are delicious, I put them in salads and soups
A bit pricey here.
Amazon sells all the seeds and nuts you need for making your own mix, I am sure there is even greater variety and better prices on the US site... I am so jealous of the stuff you can get there!

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It's possible that in the not too distant future it might be legal to grow hemp seed in the US, which would lower the price and improve availability. Hemp is a cannabis plant, not quite the same type as marijuana but close enough that it's illegal to grow it here, and the seeds have to be sterilized so they cant grow in order to be legally sold as food. But now the marijuana laws are loosening up, and there's talk about making hemp a legal crop once more. Hemp fiber is used to make rope and there are other non-recreational uses, so it's a beneficial crop. George Washington was a hemp farmer (among other things).

Yes I think I read somewhere that they sterilise the seeds... Does that mean that they are genetically modified? Or just "killed" in some way?
You need to eat tons of hemp to feel any effect, more than humanely possible, so I can't understand why it's forbidden to grow it... Unless they don't want people to grow both together and conceal one plant among the other. I guess picking a proper plant in a sea of hemp can't be easy.

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I think the hemp plant can be smoked, although it's not as effective as real marijuana. They don't want people to have viable seeds because a lot of people would use it recreationally. I think they use radiation to sterilize the seeds.

Ouch I don't like the idea of eating irradiated stuff

The parakeet mix that our store has cones with safflower and sunflower seeds. I just need to find hemp and buckwheat.

Do you feed the shelled, or unshelled? I can feed the unshelled, right?

You can feed the hemp that has the shells already off, but the birds will try to crack the shell off anyway, resulting in some of the seed getting wasted. It's your choice really, and it IS possible to find it with the shells on. Here's a site that sells them for $4 per pound with the shells on, which is cheaper than what I pay at the bird mart. I don't know what they charge for shipping though, that will probably run the price up quite a lot.

Natural-food groceries often have buckwheat groats in the bulk bins, which is buckwheat seed with the shells off. Stuff in bulk bins is nice because you can buy the exact quantity that you want. I use buckwheat groats in my sprout mix, but for the seed mix I buy them with the shells on at the bird mart.

Apparently a lot of people sprout them with the shells on. If you google for buckwheat seed shell-on, you'll find a lot of sources. That won't work for hemp though. It's illegal in the US to sell hemp seed that's capable of sprouting, and all the seeds here have been treated so they can't germinate.