Graham's Green Finch Cake

I concocted the recipe for this cake in an effort to come up with a palatable food source for my finches which would be an enormously rich source of minerals, vitamins, protein, amino acids, anti-oxidants and caratenoids. To achieve this I have included many high quality natural ingredients as well as a variety of commercially available products specifically intended for birds. I probably went a bit over the top with the recipe but I was after a cake which ticks all the boxes.

3 cups self-raising flour

1 cup millet meal

1 cup polenta

1/2 cup PVM powder (Aust Pigeon Co.)

1/2 cup F-vite (Dr Rob Marshall)

1 cup blended greens *

20g spirulina

20g kelp powder

10 eggs (incl. shells)

100ml calcivet (Vetafarm)

3 cups green half-ripe seed **

50g cooking margarine

200g honey

1 dst. sp baking powder

1 tsp bicarb soda

50g raw sugar

100ml milk

1 cup finch softfood powder ***

3ml aniseed oil

20ml aniseed essence

10g soluble multivitamin powder for birds

Cook in 170 deg c oven for 1.5 hours. The above quantity makes a 10in (25cm) square cake weighing about 5kg when cooked.

*For blended greens I used mostly a variety of broadleaf greens plus broccoli. Greens I used were 4 types of Kale, 3 types of Chicory, coloured Beets, Yugoslav Cabbage, Comfrey & Italian Parsley. These could be substituted with any broadleaf greens. Eg. Bok choy, Silverbeet, Mesclun salad mixes etc. I avoided lettuces due to their relatively low content of vitamins and minerals compared to other green leafy vegetables. Brassicas are especially rich in vitamins and minerals. I found the greens easier to blend if I added an egg or two with each handful of leaves in the blender.

**For green seed I used half-ripe Green Panic seed. This could be substituted with any other green seed. Frozen green millets would especially be suitable but since I feed the cake mixed with green millets anyway I decided on Green Panic in the cake for greater variety.

***For finch softfood powder I used Passwells finch softfood powder but any other finch softfood powder would be suitable. I usually recommend Birds-R-Us Complete Softfood above others but it contains some of the other ingredients already in this cake recipe so I figured the Passwells one would add something different rather than more of the same.

The cake overwhelmingly smells of aniseed which was my intention as most birds love aniseed flavour. The richness of the blend of ingredients results in a highly concentrated food source so a little bit goes a long way. I cut the cake into 64 pieces each about 30mmx30mmx80mm. These pieces are put into freezer bags & frozen. At one piece per day I have enough for just over 2 months of feeding from each cake.

Each day I defrost one piece then crumble it into fine particles between my fingers in a bowl. This usually results in a pile of crumbles equivalent to 2-3 heaped dessertspoons full. To this I add 13 heaped dessertspoons of frozen half-ripe green millets and 8 heaped dessertspoons of frozen sprouted seed mix. When mixed together in the morning this is fed straight to the breeding aviaries. By the the time of the afternoon feed, the dishes containing this mix have just seed husks remaining. Perfect rearing food for all species of finches.