I have reached a bit of a break in egg collecting- all hens are either sitting on eggs or feeding chicks.

I believe I am at 18, 19, or 20 chicks at the moment- I find that in the middle of breeding season the numbers get a bit squidgy on me. I only really keep track at the beginning and near the end. There are a few babies likely to fledge in the next couple of days and the next nest is due to hatch on Sunday.

Much of my babies are dark- my best breeding males this year are green so this is not a surprise.

I have spent the past day working on breeder interviews for my next book- this one should have some very nice articles specific to American Singers. I am also working on some articles for the national American Singers Club newsletter.

Here is what is in my "homemade" nestling food. I am the sort of cook who does not measure things, so I will just list the ingredients  in order from the most to the least...

• Shredded wheat cereal (ground in a food processor);
• Grape Nuts cereal;
• Mixed baby cereal;
• Oatmeal baby cereal;
• Rolled oats (the quick cooking kind);
• Rolled wheat flakes;
• Quinoa flakes;
• Texturized vegetable protein;
• soy isolate powder;
• soy-based infant formula;
• poppy seeds;
• ground flax seed;
• ground anise seed;
• hulled hemp seed (available in health food stores);
• powdered calcium;
• powdered alfalfa;
• spirulena;
• calendula petals;
• dried oregano (not a lot of this);
• Prime vitamin and probiotic supplement.

To the dry mix I add boiled eggs (I place 4-5 boiled eggs with shells in a food processor, then 3 cups or so of dry mix on top and pulse just until the eggs are finely chopped), and finely chopped fresh broccoli and carrots. Occassionally- especially if most of the chicks are older- I add some cooked couscous as well. I also sprinkle Missing Link nutritional supplement on top of the nestling food every few days as well.

The egg and dry mixture (before you add the vegetables to it) can be placed in freezer safe containers or plastic freezer bags and frozen for at least a couple of weeks- this saves a lot of time and general mess. I mix up the mixture and fresh veggies every three days- this is a HUGE timesaver!

Some breeders feel this mixture is too rich, but my chicks do well on it and the older birds seem to have no problems with it. Outside of breeding season, the birds do NOT receive this rich of an eggfood.

The key is to keep the final mixture crumbly-moist in texture- too gloppy and the hens will not eat it, too dry and they won't like it either.

This nestling food is changed twice a day. At all times a dry commerical eggfood (I prefer Witte Molen from Europe) is kept before the birds in addition to their usual canary seed mix.