Reptile & Amphibian Forums

I'm going to start feeding a little parakeet food to my uro, but what seed is good for substrate? Nyjer/thistle seed okay? I know about sunflower, but is that unshelled sunflower or all sunflower? Can't find straight millet.

if you're going to go with seed, millet is really probably the best choice. If you can't find it around the pet shops, try local feed stores or country stores or whatever you call them. i'm sure you get what I'm saying. Stores that specialize in gardening, bird feeders, and bird feed and stuff are probably a good place to check. Maybe home depot or something?

If not, basically just not sunflower seeds or the like. When using seed substrate you want small seeds. I think I've heard of some people going as far as getting regular wild bird seed and sifting out the sunflower seeds. not sure how you would do that though. Are there any other small bird seeds available to you?

I'm not a big fan of seed substrates, though I haven't ruled them out yet. Maybe try sand? Then again, if I remember right, the uro is very small right? Well, I've been looking into the impaction thing, and it does happen, mostly with smaller lizards (and mostly leopard geckos, followed by bearded dragons, followed by uromastyx, according to what I've seen). Keeping that in mind, you might want to keep the little uro on paper right now (paper towels or newpaper or something). Also, if you haven't had it checked for parasites yet, paper makes it much easier to monitor feces and get a good sample for a fecal.

Just some thoughts.

I would stay away from Niger seed. If you pick one up and squeeze it between your fingers, some of them could draw blood. I couldn't bear the thought of what it could do to the inside of your Uro.

From what I've heard, usually parakeet mix doesn't have niger, although I believe you if you say yours does. I have also had trouble finding bird seed without Niger, so I'm sticking with alfalfa pellets until my guy is big enough for sand.
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1 Mali Uromastyx named Scooter
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1 Miniature Dachshund named Dexter
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Nashville, TN

i use wild finch food purchased at my local petstore. most of the sunflower seeds are hulled, there may be a few strays though, when you see them be sure to remove them. most of the seeds are small so it doesn't seem to be a problem. the packaging for the finch food does not have a see through window so you won't be able to see whats inside. i bought this bag plenty of times it was as i described above. i usually fill my tank with about three inches... good luck.

laura
hazlet, n.j.

1.0.0 mali (ZION)
0.0.1 fire-bellied toad (KILLER)
0.0.6 tetras
0.0.2 red-eared sliders (DOROTHY&TOTO)
0.1.1 parakeets (ARIEL&JASMINE)